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.

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

Featured in

World-class articles, delivered weekly.

Kotlin vs. Java: All-purpose Uses and Android Apps

Kotlin and Java are two powerful general-purpose languages popular for Android and beyond. We’ll discuss their top features and differences, then focus on how to smoothly transition between the two.

13-minute readContinue Reading

Gabe Giro

Gabriel is a senior Android engineer with eight years of experience building apps from scratch in Kotlin and Java, and facilitating conversions between the two languages. Gabriel has worked on multimillion-dollar apps and has industry experience at companies like HBO and Yahoo.

3 Trends Shaping the Future of Tech Venture Capital in Asia

Asia is one of the hottest venture markets in the world right now. Find out what savvy investors must understand about this culturally and economically diverse region in order to succeed.

11-minute readContinue Reading

Alec Tseung

Alec is a financial analyst who has executed more than $5 billion in corporate, private equity, and venture capital transactions for Swiss Re and Tencent, China’s leading internet company. He’s also a co-founder of a Hong Kong financial advisory firm with client companies across Asia.

4 Keys to Remarkable Brand Storytelling

Storytelling is a compelling way to communicate brand value—but only if you’re telling stories that resonate with your audience. Find out how to craft authentic brand stories that captivate customers and build lasting loyalty.

10-minute readContinue Reading

Dayo Tinkerman

Dayo is a senior designer who creates engaging digital products for organizations like Guinness World Records and American University Washington College of Law. He specializes in uniting consumer insights, user research, and brand storytelling for fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, and real estate clients.

How to Deploy Django on Heroku: A Pydantic Tutorial, Part 3

Heroku makes deployment—and redeployment—incredibly simple. Explore Heroku’s Django hosting in this tutorial, and see for yourself.

9-minute readContinue Reading

Arjaan Buijk

Arjaan is a senior engineer and data scientist who creates mission-critical, Python-based cloud solutions focused on Rasa for international banks and insurance companies. He architects and teaches large-scale Kubernetes solutions.

Investing in Unit Testing: Benefits and Approaches

Stakeholders demand quick fixes for a buggy app release. Such patching is costly, and does not always offer a complete solution. Break the cycle with unit testing, a worthwhile investment in project quality.

10-minute readContinue Reading

Dacian Florea

Dacian is a senior full-stack mobile applications developer and a contributor to the Flutter framework. He specializes in rigorous testing solutions that help companies around the world design and deliver quality software applications.

Two Roadmaps Diverged: Strategic and Tactical Routes to Product Development

Product professionals are often called upon to act as both product owner and product manager. The key to doing that well? Maintaining separate strategic and tactical roadmaps. Here’s how.

8-minute readContinue Reading

Jerry Gutierrez

Jerry is a certified product management professional with more than eight years of experience working in organizational governance, digital and IT asset management, marketing analysis, and e-commerce at organizations such as HII and the Texas Association of School Boards.

Democratizing User Research to Innovate and Refine Digital Products

Empowering non-researchers to collect client feedback can pave the way to better products and customer retention.

10-minute readContinue Reading

Mariia Borysova

Mariia is a senior full-stack product designer specializing in healthtech and business operations. Her past clients include the Singapore Ministry of Health and Verizon. Working with a healthcare venture-building studio, she conducted foundational research and managed end-to-end design for multiple products.

Building Simple and Efficient Components With React-Bootstrap

With websites being viewed on so many different types of devices and in so many screen sizes, a responsive user interface is more important than ever. Leverage the power of two popular technologies with the React-Bootstrap library for performant, responsive components.

8-minute readContinue Reading

Matej Bilić

Matej is a full-stack developer with expertise across a variety of back-end and web technologies, including React, React Native, Bootstrap, and Django. He specializes in advanced web applications and built a global, bilingual travel and tourism app using React and React Native.

Heavy Computation Made Lighter: React Memoization

Unnecessary component computation drastically reduces application performance. Avoid this pitfall by using React memoization hooks and render component caching.

11-minute readContinue Reading

Prateek Karki

Prateek is a React engineer with more than seven years of experience in web development. An expert in delivering a top-tier user experience through the union of engineering and design, he has worked on enterprise-scale solutions in diverse industries, including roles at Precision Drilling and Fresh Tracks Canada.