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

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Drawing on more than 25 years of design and motion graphics experience, Toptal designer Danny Rubyono explains how he makes enticing promo videos that compel viewers to action.

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Danny Rubyono

Danny is a visual and motion designer who has created promo videos for companies such as AT&T, Intel, Microsoft, and Verizon. He is also the owner of Duro Compagnie, a collective design boutique that specializes in motion graphics for healthcare, cyber security, finance, the military, and the environment.

Digital Ledgers vs. Databases: Can Blockchain Optimize Your Supply Chain?

Blockchain isn’t just for cryptocurrency. The technology can also be used to make supply chain management more efficient, transparent, and secure. Here’s how.

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Neil Mann

Neil is a business transformation expert and management consultant with more than 20 years of experience across the financial services, natural resources, hospitality, and fast-moving consumer goods sectors. He has created and implemented digital ledger technology solutions at Kearney and global mining group Rio Tinto, and is a board advisor for LogChain, a digital supply chain logistics platform.

Raising Venture Capital in Down Markets: A Guide to Early-stage Funding

In tough financial times, VCs often focus on shoring up portfolio companies rather than investing in new opportunities. But it’s still possible to raise capital—if you refine your approach.

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Erik Stettler

Erik is a co-founder of a global venture capital fund that has invested in 50 startups (raising more than $500 million) and has realized six exits. He serves as Toptal’s Chief Economist and holds an MBA from Harvard.

The Benefits of a Design System: Making Better Products, Faster

Design systems increase collaboration, ensure consistency, and accelerate design and development cycles. Toptal product designer Molham Bakir lays out how—and shares insights and tips from his experience building them.

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Molham Bakir

Molham is a product designer who specializes in building design systems. His clients include Snap Inc. and e-commerce websites Dubizzle and Mumzworld, the largest online baby shop in the Middle East.

4 UX Tips to Reduce Users’ Cognitive Overload and Burnout

Knowledge workers spend most of their workdays using digital tools. These low-friction UX strategies help reduce techno-stress and increase healthy user engagement.

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Rodrigo Perez Estrada

Rodrigo is a product designer who specializes in creating early-stage digital products and services for companies in fintech, healthcare, and insurance. His contributions to Yerbo, a healthcare product whose clients include Nubank, Gitlab, and Pandadoc, improved user burnout scores and helped the platform achieve a 20% exercise activation rate. Rodrigo holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and an MBA.

UX Design Job Interview Tips for Global Candidates: Landing Your Dream Role in the US

Searching for a design job is never easy—and it’s even more challenging if you’re new to the country and culture you want to work in. Here are steps one designer took to build a successful design career in America.

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Olena Bukhonok

Elena is a multidisciplinary product designer and educator from Ukraine who now works in New York City. She has worked for numerous companies in the US and Ukraine, including fashion-technology startup CreateMe, healthcare startup Outcomes4Me, and EPAM, an enterprise software company used by Google, Salesforce, and Adobe. She holds a bachelor’s in architecture from Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine and speaks four languages.

Supporting Diverse Needs: A Rebranding Success Story

Brand designer Bari Keenam shares how he turned a tricky logo redesign into a brand overhaul that helped his client establish an emotional connection with its customers.

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Bariledum Keenam

Bari is a brand designer with a user-centric approach to brand ideation. With a background in engineering and marketing, he excels at problem-solving and brings diverse perspectives to brand creation. Bari teaches typography and UX design at the Lagos Engineering Career Expo and the Àṣà Coterie design community.

Real Estate Financial Modeling: 3 Costly Mistakes to Avoid

Rising construction costs mean real estate developers are relying on complex—and potentially costly—finance structures more often. Smarter modeling will help keep borrowing costs low.

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Robert Finch

Robert is the founder and director of UK-based property finance broker Sativa Finance and an expert in financial modeling. He has worked in real estate finance since 2006, securing ~$1.8 billion in financing for commercial acquisitions and construction projects.

Explore X (formerly Twitter) data clusters to uncover user behaviors (e.g., repost and reply patterns) within online communities. This guide focuses on a politically charged data set to illustrate the process of visualizing and analyzing social data.

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Juan Manuel Ortiz de Zarate

Juan is a developer, data scientist, and doctoral researcher at the University of Buenos Aires where he studies social networks, AI, and NLP. Juan has more than a decade of data science experience and has published papers at ML conferences, including SPIRE and ICCS.