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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Oracle to SQL Server and SQL Server to Oracle Migration Guide

Migrating in either direction between Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database? There are some significant pitfalls to be aware of…

11-minute readContinue Reading

Leonid Draginsky

Leonid has 20+ years of experience as a multi-platform developer and DBA, with deep expertise in Oracle and SQL Server cross-platform migrations. He tackles performance bottlenecks, data migrations, and process design through strong database development and optimization skills.

Accelerate With BERT: NLP Optimization Models

Data collection and preparation slow down traditional NLP projects. However, transfer learning and BERT can reduce the amount of data required and change the way companies execute NLP projects.

6-minute readContinue Reading

Jesse Moore

Jesse is a data scientist and AI consultant with more than 15 years of experience in machine learning, software development, and applied AI. He has led technical work across finance, advertising, and AI products, building end-to-end data science solutions for both startups and large companies. Jesse previously founded Sigmai, a deep learning news classification system for hedge funds that was acquired by Commetric in 2019, and served as CTO of GOOD TRAFFIC, where he built the technology that scaled the company to $5 million in annual revenue.

How to Recruit UX Research Participants

Finding the right UX research participants can result in valuable insights even from a mediocre UX testing plan. UX researchers should spend the time to identify and find the right participants.

9-minute readContinue Reading

James Tucker

James fuses cognitive science techniques with clever interaction design to make products people love.

Analyzing the Effects of Negative Interest Rates Across Five Economies

What happens when interest rates drop below zero - are you really paid to borrow money? Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Eurozone have all experienced negative rates and their experiences give pointers towards the effectiveness of such strategies.

12-minute readContinue Reading

Toptal Talent Network Experts

Build with Confidence: A Guide to JUnit Tests

In an age of continuous delivery, Java developers have to be confident that their changes don’t break existing code, hence automated testing. There’s more than one valid approach to it, but how can you keep them straight?

11-minute readContinue Reading

Nikhil Bansal

Nikhil (BTech) has automated finance sector code across everything from J2EE to Elasticsearch to Kafka. And, of course, all things AWS.

Why Small Words Matter: The Importance of Microcopy UX

Small words matter. Effective UX microcopy can help UX designers create digital products that are more useful, engaging, and simple to use. Here are several examples of good (and bad) microcopy.

6-minute readContinue Reading

Chintan Bhatt

Chintan is a user experience designer with over a decade of experience designing products for web, mobile, and other digital mediums.

How to Build a Role-based API with Firebase Authentication

Nearly every app requires an authorization system on top of an authentication system. We often need a fine-grained permissions model to allow only specific users to access certain resources while simultaneously restricting access for everyone else.

In this tutorial, Toptal Freelance Firebase Developer Joaquin Cid teaches how to build just such a system. Called role-based authentication, we’ll learn how to implement this system in an API using Node.js and Firebase.

15-minute readContinue Reading

Joaquin Cid

Joaquin is a full-stack developer with over 12 years of experience working for companies like WebMD and Getty Images.

Looks That Thrill: Inside the Booming Beauty Industry

How has the beauty industry become extremely innovative? How did Glossier and The Ordinary approach (and crack) the problem of enticing consumers, building brand loyalty and creating unique experiences? The lessons are relevant for all DTC companies.

10-minute readContinue Reading

Natasha Ketabchi

Natasha is a management consultant with experience in capital markets, government, financial restructuring, and venture investments. She has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and transitioned to venture capital after a career in banking at JPMorgan, HSBC, and Alvarez & Marsal.