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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How to Reduce UX Friction in Secure Product Development

Prioritizing data security often comes at the expense of a good UX. To balance client needs with user preferences, product managers must use research, constant calibration, and a dose of creativity.

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Leor Hurwitz

Leor is a veteran product manager specializing in fintech, fraud, and cybersecurity. He has led product development in both startups and large corporations, including IBM and Microsoft. Under his leadership, his teams nearly eliminated fraud for one client, protecting systems that process $230 million per year.

Tracking the Scrum Master Growth Path

Whether you’re exploring the fundamentals or refining your leadership skills, these recommendations will help you chart a path toward becoming a true transformation expert.

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Anna Zakoyan

Anna is an Agile coach, senior Scrum master, trainer, and consultant with 16 years of experience in project and team management. She has helped more than 50 companies, including SGS Digicomply, Krisp, Ucraft, HSBC, Ameriabank, and Joomag, transform how teams collaborate and how work gets done.

Vital Design: The Importance of Healthcare App Accessibility

COVID-19 made telemedicine popular—and in some cases, necessary. But many platforms and apps are inaccessible to those who need them most. Designers can change that.

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Amy Oughton

Amy is a digital design expert who specializes in analyzing big data and designing high-converting interfaces for applications, SaaS products, and websites. She focuses on the healthcare, finance, nonprofit, and government sectors.

The Personal Finance of Career Independence

For many highly skilled workers, the benefits of going freelance may outweigh the risks—especially right now. Toptal’s Chief Economist explains why, and reveals what he wishes he’d known when he stepped out on his own.

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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.

A Deeper Meaning: Topic Modeling in Python

Colloquial language doesn’t lend itself to computation. That’s where natural language processing steps in. Learn how topic modeling helps computers understand human speech.

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Federico Albanese

Federico is a developer and data scientist who has worked at Facebook, where he made machine learning model predictions. He is a Python expert and a university lecturer. His PhD research pertains to graph machine learning.

Successful SaaS Fundraising: Navigating the Evolving Landscape

Investors have been pouring capital into SaaS startups. But that doesn’t mean raising funds is easy. This guide to finding the right financing options can help lead you to the treasure in this tricky terrain.

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Julio C. Ortiz

Julio has more than 25 years of diversified experience as a finance VP for multinational companies in a number of industries. Over the last five years, he has focused primarily on helping owners of early- to mid-stage SaaS and e-commerce startups raise funds to successfully grow their companies. Julio’s experience includes financial planning and modeling, business plan development, company valuation, fundraising, and strategic leadership.

Unity AI Development: A Finite-state Machine Tutorial

Ever wonder how game developers deliver entertaining interplay with the non-player characters they create? Learn how to develop them yourself in our finite-state machine tutorial.

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Garegin Tadevosyan

Garegin is an accomplished Unity and C# game developer. He created a networking protocol for gamified playground equipment, served as the CTO of an educational gaming startup, and was a game developer on a multinational social-casino team.

TypeScript vs. JavaScript: Your Go-to Guide

Considering you can include as much plain JavaScript as you like in your TypeScript project, what factors should you consider when choosing TypeScript for your application? Let’s explore.

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Daniele Monesi

Daniele is a full-stack developer and cloud solution architect who has worked with many software environments, such as Java-based back ends, Angular- and React-based front ends, and serverless or hybrid cloud infrastructures.

5 Considerations for a Strong E-commerce Product Strategy

E-commerce is a crowded sector. Build a better product strategy and increase your chances of success with these expert insights.

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Jonathan Lau

Jonathan is an expert in e-commerce product management who has developed and launched successful products for brands such as PepsiCo eCommerce, Dawn Foods, Instacart, and Loblaw Digital.