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The Toptal Blog is the top hub for developers, designers, finance experts, executives, and entrepreneurs, featuring key technology updates, tutorials, freelancer resources, and management insights.

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Toptal core team members share their experience, expertise, and perspectives on the Toptal Edge Blog

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Fastlane: iOS Automation on Cruise Control

Working on an iOS application can be tedious, especially when you are wasting countless hours doing the most boring tasks: taking screenshots, signing code, and jumping through similar hoops to get your app to the users’ devices.

In this article, Toptal Freelance iOS Developer Francisco Reynolds walks you through the ultimate release automation tool for your iOS app and shows how it can save you from all of the tedious tasks.

6 minute readContinue Reading
Francisco Reynolds

Francisco Reynolds

Francisco is a technical lead with extensive experience in iOS, Node.js, and web project development.

The Value of Design Thinking in Business

Product innovation happens at the intersection of desirability, business viability, and technological feasibility. Design thinking—with a proven ROI—integrates all three and delivers business value.

8 minute readContinue Reading
James Pikover

James Pikover

James has written about consumer tech and video games for over 6 years including VentureBeat, IGN, and Gizmodo.

Everything You Need to Know About the CVS-Aetna Merger

Candy, cosmetics… and medical care? In a vertical merger valued at a whopping $69 billion, your favorite stop-in, CVS, plans to buy Aetna. If it goes through, it will be the largest deal of 2017 and the largest healthcare deal to date.

Amidst all the buzz surrounding the merger, this article elucidates the motivations behind it, including operational cost-cutting, expanded services as a competitive advantage, and threats from both Amazon and UnitedHealth. This piece also explores potential market effects.

11 minute readContinue Reading
Melissa Lin

Melissa Lin

Melissa has worked in ECM, tech startups, and management consulting, advising Fortune 500 companies across multiple sectors.

Magento 2: Revision or Revolution?

Magento 2 was initially greeted with skepticism, but the maturity of the next generation of Magento development has brought on an explosion of new users. In this article, Toptal Freelance Magento Developer Vivek Khatri explains why it’s the top choice for eCommerce sites, new and old.

10 minute readContinue Reading
Vivek Khatri

Vivek Khatri

Vivek is a Magento certified developer with over 6 years of experience. He focuses on the business needs of clients when creating solutions.

An Investor’s Guide to Palm Oil

To the novice investor or otherwise uninitiated, the ubiquity of palm oil as a global commodity cannot be overstated. It is a super crop with EBITDA margins > 50%, is the world’s most consumed edible oil, and is one of the most versatile raw material/substrate bases known to industry.

This article explores the sparsely understood world of palm, including its cultivation, harvest, and application processes; its financial and investment profile; and ultimately the trends governing its future.

15 minute readContinue Reading
Orinola Gbadebo-Smith

Orinola Gbadebo-Smith

Ori is an investor-cum-entrepreneur with experience across M&A, PE, VC and startup operations. He most recently founded a VC-backed startup.

Why Are Emerging Market Currencies Volatile?

The attention on international payments tends to center around innovations appearing in the developed world. But what about developing countries?

This article addresses what contributes to volatility and illiquidity in emerging market currencies, and how they can stabilize to become more flexible.

13 minute readContinue Reading
Pedro Kniphoff

Pedro Kniphoff

Pedro is an expert in FP&A with extensive experience across emerging markets, most notably as a CFO of a $5Bn revenue business.

Getting Started with the Elm Programming Language

Elm is a purely functional, strongly typed, reactive, and event-driven web client language. It takes a step back from the norms and really changes the way you reason about and program web application front-ends.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Vuk Djapic takes you through the exotic concepts of Elm and its pros and cons in real world use.

16 minute readContinue Reading
Vuk Djapic

Vuk Djapic

Vuk has a Master’s degree in IST and a decade-plus of full-stack development in Java and JavaScript, including advanced algorithms.

Mastering Fintech UX: A Design Case Study

New fintech apps are changing how we see our investment goals and interact with financial institutions. This article reviews best practices for building trust without sacrificing fun or usability.

8 minute readContinue Reading
Tejas Bhatt

Tejas Bhatt

Tejas designs impactful digital products and works with major Indian startups, including the world’s largest bank and credit card company.

Better UX Through Microinteractions

Microinteractions are single interactive moments in a product that enhance the workflow and make a product more enjoyable. This article highlights key parts of microinteractions and patterns.

8 minute readContinue Reading
Ondřej Dostál

Ondřej Dostál

For the past five years, Ondřej has worked as a designer, specializing in helping companies with their UX and UI designs, mostly mobile.

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