Toptal Blog

The Toptal Blog is the top hub for developers, designers, management consultants, 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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A Guide to CloudKit: How to Sync User Data Across iOS Devices

Modern mobile application development requires a well thought-out plan for keeping user data in sync across various devices. This is a thorny problem with many gotchas and pitfalls, but users expect the feature and expect it to work well. For iOS and macOS, Apple provides a robust toolkit, called CloudKit API, which allows developers targeting Apple platforms to solve this synchronization problem.

In this article, Toptal Software Engineer Paul Young demonstrate how to use CloudKit to keep a user’s data in sync between multiple clients.

21-minute readContinue Reading
Paul Young

Paul Young

Paul’s been a developer for nearly three decades, working with many tech stacks but with a focus on Apple. He loves solving hard problems.

A Guide to Robust Unit and Integration Tests With JUnit

Automated software tests are critically important to the long-term quality, maintainability, and extensibility of software projects, and for Java, JUnit is the path to automation.

While most of this article will focus on writing robust unit tests and utilizing stubbing, mocking, and dependency injection, Toptal Software Engineer Josh Hayden will also discuss JUnit and integration tests.

19-minute readContinue Reading
Joshua Hayden

Joshua Hayden

A results-driven software engineer, Josh focuses on implementing high-quality code. He is routinely involved in all phases of development.

Term Sheet Templates: Clauses to Look Out for During Negotiation

Despite the large increase in resources aimed at helping founders navigate the fundraising process, many still struggle when it comes to comprehending certain term sheet clauses.

Such clauses can lead to founders losing control of their company or payout structures upon exit down the road. This post breaks down the term sheet’s trickiest clauses and the implications thereof.

19-minute readContinue Reading
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WordPress REST API: The Next-generation CMS Feature

For a while, WordPress seemed to had fallen behind. As the web became more reliant on JavaScript to create immersive, interactive experiences, it became increasingly clear that WordPress needed to offer new ways for users and developers to interact with its content.

In this post, Toptal Freelance Developer Brian Coords explores the amazing new features of WordPress’s REST API, showing why WordPress is still on the cutting edge of web development.

12-minute readContinue Reading
Brian Coords

Brian Coords

Brian loves solving problems with WordPress. In his previous career, he was a high school and college English teacher.

Unlimited Scale and Free Web Hosting with GitHub Pages and Cloudflare

Whether you’re a bootstrapped startup that needs a brochureware website or a corporation that needs a high-performing web app, this post is for you. In it, Toptal Software Engineer Amin Shah Gilani teaches you how to setup a static, SSL-secure website for the very low cost of free, using Github Pages and Cloudflare.

11-minute readContinue Reading
Amin Shah Gilani

Amin Shah Gilani

Amin is a developer and entrepreneur who loves writing clean, test-driven Ruby and ES6 code—crafted for CI/CD.

10 Videos All Designers Should Watch

From the great industrial designer Dieter Rams explaining his principle of design to Adam Grant discussing the habits of original thinkers, we’ve curated a list of our favorite design videos.

< 5-minute readContinue Reading
Bree Chapin

Bree Chapin

Bree’s a passionate designer and problem-solver with 10+ years experience in product and UXUI design for web and native mobile applications.

Getting the Most from Equity Research - Lessons from a Former Research Analyst

Equity research provides a very useful function in our current financial markets. Nevertheless, the profession has come under fire in recent years.

In this post, Toptal Management Consultant Ryan Downie details how to utilize research reports more effectively. Additionally, he outlines the equity research’s main value for both sophisticated and retail investors and highlights the pitfalls of this profession, its causes, and how you should evaluate research in order to avoid these issues.

12-minute readContinue Reading
Ryan Downie

Ryan Downie

Ryan left the hedge fund world to become a startup consultant. He has helped clients raise more than $1.2 million in early-stage capital.

A Step-by-Step Guide to UI Animation With Principle and Sketch

Animated UI elements improve the user experience, but how exactly are they made? These short tutorial videos demonstrate the most effective animation techniques using Principle for Mac.

9-minute readContinue Reading
Tidjane Tall

Tidjane Tall

Tidjane is a UX/UI design leader who connects users’ needs and goals to deliver strategic solutions for companies like Adobe and Google.

The Advanced Git Guide: Git Stash, Reset, Rebase, and More

Could you be using Git more efficiently?

The answer is probably a resounding “Yes,” which is why Toptal Software Engineer Ursula Clarke wrote today’s post.

In it, she teaches you how to use git stash, git reset, git bisect, git squash, and git rebase for maximum productivity.

19-minute readContinue Reading
Ursula Clarke

Ursula Clarke

Ursula has over five years of experience in software development and specializes in front-end development, especially intricate UI.

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