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The Toptal Blog is the top hub for developers, designers, finance experts, 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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Consistency Is Key: How to Build a Figma Design System

Figma has advanced features that are tailored to meet expectations for consistency during the design process. This tutorial outlines how a Figma component library can work well within a design system.

8 minute readContinue Reading
Jason Gilmour

Jason Gilmour

Jason is an experienced designer with a talent for UX, strategy, and creating innovative solutions from first principles.

Stork, Part 3: Implementing Expressions and Variables

Developing a new programming language from scratch tends to create unique challenges, followed by unconventional solutions that may go against some programming dogmas.

In Part 3 of our Stork series, Toptal Full-stack Developer Jakisa Tomic elaborates on how C++ macros can help and why expression implementation might not be as straightforward as expected.

18 minute readContinue Reading
Jakiša Tomić

Jakiša Tomić

Jakisa has 15+ years of experience developing various apps on multiple platforms. Most of his technical expertise is in C++ development.

Education has rapidly evolved away from the red-brick schoolhouse model. About $7.0 billion was invested globally by VC funds into the edtech market in 2019. This is expected to grow 3x over the next decade. Where is the money going? What characteristics do new competitors need to be sustainable?

7 minute readContinue Reading
Steven Southwick

Steven Southwick

Steve Southwick is the CEO and founder of Pointful Education. He also advises startups and growth-stage companies on capital raising, mergers, and acquisitions.

Visual Shelf Life: Why Web Design Illustrations Go Stale

Illustration makes the web a brighter place, but there’s a risk it will grow stale. We explain how designers can avoid imitation with web design illustrations that give clients a competitive edge.

8 minute readContinue Reading
Micah Bowers

Micah Bowers

Micah helps businesses craft meaningful connections through branding, illustration, and design.

Corporate Venture Capital: The Devil...or an Innovative Growth Channel?

In industries seeing stagnant growth or a negative impact from uncontrollable, outside forces, many companies are turning to corporate venture capital as an alternative means to innovation. Yet, famed venture capitalist Fred Wilson once said that corporate venture capital was the “devil.”

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Elizabeth J. Howell Hanano, CFA

Elizabeth J. Howell Hanano, CFA

Elizabeth was an equity research analyst on both the buyside and sellside before transitioning to freelancing where she specializes in market research and valuation.

The Need for Speed: A Toptal JavaScript Coding Challenge Retrospective

Toptal’s JavaScript Speed Coding Challenge invited creative solutions from the beginning. As the week played out, competitors got closer and closer to the maximum theoretical score. Then something unexpected happened…

6 minute readContinue Reading
Eva Bojorges Rodriguez

Eva Bojorges Rodriguez

Toptal’s Latin America Community leader, Eva specializes in AI and speaks at events worldwide about game theory and data science.

Why Market Share Is Important: Because Bigger Is Better Than Better

Product leaders have been force-fed the notion that market leadership is a function of delivering the best client experience. And yet, overperforming product managers focus first on being bigger, not better.

8 minute readContinue Reading
Eric Nowak

Eric Nowak

A former software engineer and analytics expert, Eric built a $1.2 billion network and security business from scratch.

Why Use Material Design? Weighing the Pros and Cons

Google’s Material Design guidelines have become the signature look of their websites and apps. Still, there are plenty of use cases outside of Google’s platforms where Material Design is also a solid choice.

5 minute readContinue Reading
Cameron Chapman

Cameron Chapman

Cameron comes from a design background and is the author of two web design books: Color for Web Design and The Smashing Idea Book.

Stork, Part 2: Creating an Expression Parser

Would you rather develop a statically or dynamically typed programming language? How would you devise your expression parser?

In the second part of our Stork series, Toptal Full-stack Developer Jakisa Tomic outlines his preferred approach and demonstrates how you can create a functional expression parser.

14 minute readContinue Reading
Jakiša Tomić

Jakiša Tomić

Jakisa has 15+ years of experience developing various apps on multiple platforms. Most of his technical expertise is in C++ development.

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