Toptal Blog
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My Five Worst WordPress Development Mistakes
Join an expert in a look back in horror at his most embarrassing mistakes in his early days as a WordPress developer. He discusses general PHP bugs, WordPress-specific bugs, and also mistakes made at a managerial level while supervising other developers.
Scott Fennell
Having developed a theme and plugin framework for the largest law firms in the world, Scott is no stranger to WordPress at scale.
Zero Downtime Jenkins Continuous Deployment with Terraform on AWS
When your app’s next iteration is ready to deploy, you have two choices: either stop the entire application and deploy the new version manually every time or build an automated zero downtime CI/CD deployment pipeline once.
In this article, Toptal Freelance DevOps Engineer Gaurav Kohli demonstrates the latter using the Jenkins-powered continuous deployment pipeline of a three-tier web application built in Node.js, deployed on AWS Cloud, and using Terraform as an infrastructure orchestrator.
Gaurav Kohli
Gaurav has 12+ years cumulative experience working as a developer, scrum master, senior consultant, and product owner.
Who, What, and Why: A Guide to User Testing Methods
The fundamental purpose of user testing is to better understand and empathize with people who are the core users of a digital product.
Jeff Bryant
Jeff’s UX career has produced award-winning mobile applications, enterprise applications, and user-centric products owned by millions.
VR Project Development–How Project Managers Should Prepare
This article examines the VR technology, market trends, and most popular use cases. Key project roles are described alongside some most important challenges that PMs might face when managing a VR project.
Audrius Zujus
Audrius is an experienced product and project manager who has worked with: Uber, Deloitte, Rolls-Royce, Deutsche Bank, Warner Bros.
Three Principles of Data Warehouse Development
Data warehouses aren’t exactly a new concept, but industry demand for data science services, coupled with the rise of AI and machine learning, is making them more relevant than ever.
In this post, Toptal Data Warehouse Developer Chamitha Wanaguru outlines three basic principles you need to keep in mind when developing a new data warehouse.
Chamitha Wanaguru
Chamitha is an IT veteran specializing in data warehouse system architecture, data engineering, business analysis, and project management.
How to Value a Fintech Startup
Compared to traditional financial services businesses, fintech startups require different valuation approaches. This article explores these differences and the best practices to apply when appraising a fintech investment.
Nirvikar Jain
Nirvikar has helped raise $20+ billion of capital and built lines of business as an experienced CEO, banker, and strategist.
UI Design Best Practices for Better Scannability
Scannability is often an overlooked usability factor, but it is one of the most impactful. These UI design tips make it easy for designers to convert a brief visitor to a long-lasting user.
Nemanja Banjanin
Nemanja is a designer who creates distinctive and visually appealing UI/UX. He leads large-scale user-centric and result-driven projects.
Changelog: The OWASP Top 10 Project
The de facto standard for web application security is the Open Web Application Security Project’s Top 10 Project. It lists the ten most prevalent security threats based on an extensive amount of data and community feedback and was updated in late 2017.
In this article, Toptal Freelance Full-stack and System Security Developer Hrvoje Gazibara discusses the changes to the OWASP Top 10’s most recent revision by illustrating new vulnerabilities, and even some that were removed.
Hrvoje Gazibara
Hrvoje is a software engineer with 5+ years of experience using languages like PHP, Python, JavaScript, SQL, and HTML.
What Is a Down Round and How to Avoid One
Anyone vaguely familiar with the venture capital industry knows that down rounds are bad news. But what exactly are they, and why do they occur? What alternatives do founders have to avoid a down round?
Natasha Ketabchi
Natasha transitioned to venture capital after a career in banking, built in prestigious firms such as JPMorgan and A&M.
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