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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Digging Deeper: A Practical Guide to Creative Empathy for Product Design

Master creative empathy techniques to help you understand what other people want and need, then apply these skills throughout the design process to create products that resonate with people.

10-minute readContinue Reading

Brian Pagán, EngD, MSc

Brian is a human-experience designer focused on healthcare, fintech, IoT, and sustainability. He has helped businesses such as Philips, ING Group, and Land Life Company develop innovation strategies and award-winning products and services. He is the author of The Creative Empathy Field Guide.

Enterprise Case Study: How 100% Tuition Reimbursement Future-proofs Walmart’s Business

Six months after the relaunch of Walmart’s free education initiative, the director of the program gives Toptal Insights an exclusive update—and explains why other businesses should follow suit.

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Lauren Drell

A business communications expert, Lauren has worked with Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies, including R.R. Donnelley & Sons and Unilever. She has a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

What Is Bitcoin Mining? How It Works and What It Takes to Make It Pay

Bitcoin mining is still strong in North America, sparking new revenue opportunities for companies with access to cheap power, especially renewables. Learn about the risks as well as the rewards.

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Dhruv Tandan

Dhruv is a veteran management consultant who has worked on fundraising and consulting projects worth more than $1 billion. His work focuses on cryptocurrency, energy, technology, food, and life science projects around the globe.

How Product Designers Can Use Gamification for Good

Gamification in product design is a powerful tool for engaging users, but it can also cause significant harm if left unchecked. With good intent and ethical strategies, designers can create gamified products that balance user health and client requirements.

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Alexandre Brito

Alexandre is a user experience designer and strategist with more than 12 years of experience working for companies such as Deutsche Bank, Philips, Vodafone, KLM, Intel, Pernod Ricard, Asics, and Toyota. He designs better ways for customers to experience products and services that improve their lives as well as the business’s bottom line. Alexandre excels at simplifying complex concepts, understanding behavior, and creating innovative experiences.

Tips for Effective Agile Budgeting and Forecasting

Adaptability is a core pillar of Agile. As such, Agile budget planning needs to be approached with a flexible mindset. These tips can help you deliver projects on budget without sacrificing quality.

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Katie Shevlin

Katie has more than a decade of experience reporting on innovations in business and technology. She has worked on content for brands including McDonald’s, Telstra, and Hewlett Packard, and is Senior Editor of the Toptal Projects and Product Blogs.

Thanks to rapid advances in technology, large amounts of data generated on social networks can be analyzed with relative ease, especially for those who use the R programming language and Gephi.

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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.

How to Use Your Product Management Experience to Ride the AI Wave

Organizations are investing in AI initiatives and seeking product experts to lead them. Here’s how you can leverage diverse industry experience and capitalize on the rising demand for product managers in AI.

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Adrian Gonzalez

Adrian is an AI and ML specialist who has held multiple roles in product and project management and consulting. He has taught at MIT and regularly lectures at the university level on AI project management, ethics, and big data.

Helping AI See Clearly: A Dashboard Design Case Study

In this dashboard design case study, Toptal UI expert Fellype Silva describes how he built a user interface that improved the image recognition capabilities of automated AI systems.

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Fellype Silva

Fellype is an experienced digital product designer who specializes in user interfaces. His user-focused designs support the business needs of multiple clients, including a market research firm, a pediatric mental health app developer, a real estate marketing startup, and a venture capital studio.

The Shadow Pandemic: Ransomware’s Present and Future Dangers for Corporations

The fight against ransomware can’t be left to government or law enforcement agencies alone. Corporate leaders must pitch in—to protect their own companies and the global economy.

11-minute readContinue Reading

Peter Matuszak

Peter Matuszak is Toptal’s Senior Writer for Business. A former investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune and policy advisor to multiple governmental agencies and officials, he now writes about tech, finance, and the future of work for Toptal Insights.