Practice Director, Application Development (Technology Services) - Internationally-Based Applicants
About Toptal
Toptal is a global network of top freelance talent in business, design, and technology that enables companies to scale their teams, on-demand. With $200+ million in annual revenue and over 40% year-over-year growth, Toptal is the world’s largest fully remote workforce.
We take the best elements of virtual teams and combine them with a support structure that encourages innovation, social interaction, and fun. We see no borders, move at a fast pace, and are never afraid to break the mold.
Position Description
This is a remote position.
Toptal is an organization that is disrupting the global professional services and talent market. In response to our clients’ overwhelming demand for exceptional talent in new areas, we are expanding the breadth and depth of our Technology Services offerings to further fuel that growth. As the Director for Toptal’s Application Development practice, you will be in a high-impact position to set the vision, own the P&L, develop the Go-to-Market strategy, and accelerate growth of this well-established practice area. Specifically, you will be adept in competing for and winning large, team-based projects in the application development domain, and as a result your practice will enable Toptal to rapidly increase market share.
This leader will be a proven expert in Application Development, with a deep understanding of cross-industry target buyers, their priorities, and the trends impacting them. The ideal candidate for this position will have served in a leadership role in an Application Development services company or consultancy. They will leverage their technical expertise and business development capabilities to accelerate Toptal’s ability to win larger projects, especially projects where Toptal fully manages the team and project outcomes. Additionally, this leader will inform critical business decisions, such as which services and offerings we build out, determining pricing and packaging strategies, and developing a compelling value position that ensures Toptal’s competitiveness in the evolving market. Their insights will be essential to meeting the market’s changing needs both now and in the future.
We are unable to provide visa sponsorship. Resumes and communication must be submitted in English.
Responsibilities:
This person will be responsible for building and scaling Toptal’s Application Development practice. This includes:
- Strategy: Figure out which clients and buyers we target, and what problems we help them solve.
- Offering Development: Develop attractive, scalable offerings that resonate with specific customer segments.
- Go-to-Market: Take services and offerings to market; first, by leading from the front to establish product-market fit with our clients, and then by working with our Practices Operations team to scale adoption and the commercial impact of offerings.
- Marketing: Develop thought leadership and campaigns that highlight our competitive differentiation, elevate our reputation in the market, attract great talent to our network, and generate leads for sales.
- Sales: Understand current and future demand and enable, educate, and directly support the salesforce to position this practice best. Lead client conversations, presenting Toptal’s point-of-view and asking exploratory questions to understand client needs better.
- Talent: Ensure our talent network is prepared to meet the demands of the market (e.g., the right skills in the right capacities) as well as foster an ongoing sense of community amongst the network of professionals in this practice area.
- Delivery: Collaborate with our Delivery function to define and execute the “Toptal way” methodologies for key services and solutions.
This role is highly collaborative, and will work extremely closely with Toptal’s Marketing, Sales, and Talent Operations teams to fulfill the above responsibilities.
The successful Director for this role has a demonstrated ability to:
- Lead in a highly collaborative way.
- Operate in a high-growth environment.
- Articulate a strategy grounded in an agile execution plan.
- Be comfortable with rolling up their sleeves to do the work, demonstrate traction, and build a team over time.
- Manage a P&L statement and have a proven track record for overseeing financial performance, identifying areas for improvement, and driving profitability and growth.
- Make data-informed decisions and define key metrics with which they’ll measure progress.
- Walk in the shoes of their audience in order to understand their problems, develop/execute an approach to solve them, and articulate the solution in a clear and compelling way.
In the first week, expect to:
- Onboard and integrate into Toptal; meet your colleagues.
- Learn about Toptal’s history, culture, and vision, with a focus on the state of our industry, the Future of Work, and the core messages important to Toptal.
- Shadow critical teams throughout the organization to learn Toptal’s core operations and capabilities.
In the first month, expect to:
- Begin developing relationships with key leaders and stakeholders across the organization.
- Dive deeper into the operations of key teams (e.g., Sales, Talent Operations) across the company.
- Conduct a comprehensive review of the current demand in your practice area, the talent that exists already in the network, and any work we may already be doing or have done.
- Start to add value to strategic opportunity pursuits.
- Articulate a hypothesis about where you want to take the practice (strategy) and design experiments and build execution approaches to get there.
In the first three months, expect to:
- Be a well-integrated member of the organization with positive relationships in Sales (Enterprise and SMB), Marketing, and Talent Operations.
- Be in front of clients on a regular basis to hear from them firsthand.
- Develop and socialize your practice’s GTM Strategy.
- Begin positively impacting revenue growth by leading and winning team-based projects.
In the first six months, expect to:
- Be the go-to expert for your practice within Toptal.
- Have established initial market traction.
- See a commercial impact from your involvement in early initiatives.
In the first year, expect to:
- Feel like you made the best decision of your career.
- Increase the growth rate of Toptal materially.
Requirements:
- 8+ years of experience in your practice, with preferably 5+ years in a leadership role within an application development focused service provider or consultancy.
- 3+ years managing a business, preferably with P&L responsibility.
- Demonstrate a broad range of app development experience and knowledge, spanning various platforms and technologies.
- Have deep expertise in overseeing both conventional (waterfall) and agile application development, while also showcasing a track record in crafting testing frameworks and suggesting enhancements.
- Possess strong expertise in DevOps tool-chaining, with a proven track record of effectively implementing and optimizing toolchains to streamline application development and deployment processes.
- Proficiency in mobile app development, encompassing a deep understanding of both native and hybrid approaches, along with a solid grasp of the nuances of app store acceptance criteria. Keen awareness of current best practices in mobile app development, ensuring the application of up-to-date industry standards.
- Bachelor’s degree required, MBA preferred.
- Track record of rapid career progression achieved by taking on challenging assignments and exceeding expectations.
- Experience packaging, pricing, and delivering compelling solutions.
- Refined relationship development & leadership skills with a track record of success in building credibility across all levels of an organization. You can develop positive relationships across the business to partner on key initiatives and gain consensus on processes and strategies.
- Confidence in your analysis abilities, with proven success in delivering results in ambiguous and sophisticated project efforts.
- Skilled in the art of communicating with both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Ability to take your work, but not yourself, too seriously.
- You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.