Toptal Engineering Blog

The Toptal Engineering Blog is a hub for in-depth development tutorials and new technology announcements created by professional software engineers in the Toptal network.

Toptalauthors are vetted experts in their fields and write on topics in which they have demonstrated experience. All of our content is peer reviewed and validated by Toptal experts in the same field.
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Adversarial Machine Learning: How to Attack and Defend ML Models

The increasing accuracy of machine learning systems has resulted in a flood of applications using them. As machine learning models matured and improved, so did ways of attacking them.

In this article, Toptal Python Developer Pau Labarta Bajo examines the world of adversarial machine learning, explains how ML models can be attacked, and what you can do to safeguard them against attack.

10-minute readContinue Reading
Pau Labarta Bajo

Pau Labarta Bajo

Pau has extensive experience in quantitative finance. He combines love of statistics and machine learning with excellent Python skills.

Make Your App Profitable: Leverage Mobile Analytics

Building a mobile app isn’t cheap—and the harsh reality is that most apps fail. Find out how to leverage fundamental analytics metrics to make sure your app actually turns a profit.

11-minute readContinue Reading
Matthew Knippen

Matthew Knippen

Since 2008, Matthew has built more than 60 iOS apps using Swift and Objective-C. He is best known for taking products from idea to App Store in under eight weeks. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Illinois Institute of Technology. His core strengths include native iOS development as well as product development and management.

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Zero to Hero: Flask Production Recipes

Flask is a great way to get up and running quickly with a Python applications, but what if you wanted to make something a bit more robust?

In this article, Toptal Freelance Python Developer Ivan PoleschyuI shares some tips and useful recipes for building a complete production-ready Flask application.

11-minute readContinue Reading
Ivan Poleschyuk

Ivan Poleschyuk

Ivan is a passionate machine learning engineer and full-stack software developer with a master’s degree in computer science.

Build a Custom Full Page Slider with CSS and JavaScript

There are a number of ways of implementing animated full-screen layouts with a large degree of human interaction, and many developers would resort to a JavaScript plugin to save time.

In this article, Toptal JavaScript Developer Stefan Vitasovic demonstrates how you can do it using nothing but CSS and JavaScript, without including a bloated library or plugin in your project.

14-minute readContinue Reading
Stefan Vitasovic

Stefan Vitasovic

Stefan is a front-end engineer inspired by modern, interactive layouts. He has worked on hundreds of projects, focusing on high-end UI and UX.

Working With TypeScript, Dependency Injection, and Discord Bots

Types and testable code are two of the most effective ways of avoiding bugs. In this tutorial, discover TypeScript best practices while you create a Discord bot from scratch.

10-minute readContinue Reading
Michał Krakiewicz

Michał Krakiewicz

A PHP/Laravel veteran, Michał (BSc) learned Agile teamwork at cloud analytics giant Piwik PRO (now Matomo). Lately, his focus is on Vue.js.

Object Detection Using OpenCV and Swift

Swift is great, but what if your application relies on a library that’s written using C++? Luckily Objective-C++ is here to save the day.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Swift Developer Josip Bernat integrates C++ code with Swift by using wrapper classes as a bridge and then creates an app that recognizes the Toptal logo using OpenCV.

5-minute readContinue Reading
Josip Bernat

Josip Bernat

Josip has been developing for iOS since iOS 4 beta but vastly prefers the current state of iOS development with Objective-C and Swift.

Building a GraphQL Server with Laravel

GraphQL is a query language for APIs and can be used to query data from a server while also allowing clients to specify exactly what data is needed.

Toptal Freelance Developer Christopher Moore explains how to create a GraphQL server using the Laravel Framework along with walking through some examples including querying relationships, mutations, and authentication.

15-minute readContinue Reading
Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is a full-stack PHP developer with over seven years of experience. He specializes in Laravel and Ember development.

Bridging Gaps: The Importance of DevOps Communication

DevOps is an oft-misunderstood buzzword, seen as a trendy must-have in the form of technologies, tools, and staff to acquire. But it’s much more, yet much simpler, than that.

9-minute readContinue Reading
Piotr Gaczkowski

Piotr Gaczkowski

With low-level (C/C++) and high-level (Python) experience gained at Intel and ADVA, Piotr follows the DevOps path to build great products.

The Front End: Using Gatsby.js and Node.js for Static Site Updates

With a static site generator back end in place from Part 1, now it’s time to implement a Gatsby.js-based front end, host it on Netlify, and get AWS to activate the whole pipeline.

7-minute readContinue Reading
Furkan Yavuz

Furkan Yavuz

Furkan is an experienced full-stack developer who has worked remotely since 2016. His main expertise includes Java, Angular, and Heroku.

ReactiveUI and the MVVM Pattern in WPF Applications

Wikipedia describes Reactive Programming as “an asynchronous programming paradigm concerned with data streams and the propagation of change,” but what is it really?

In this article, Toptal Freelance WPF Developer Denis Jesus Gonzalez Sanchez demonstrates a WPF app using ReactiveUI with the MVVM pattern and uses it to access a REST API.

12-minute readContinue Reading
Denis Jesus Gonzalez Sanchez

Denis Jesus Gonzalez Sanchez

Denis is a certified C# specialist and MS certified professional, experienced in several programming languages and business domains.

How to Create a Secure Node.js GraphQL API

GraphQL is a query language for APIs, originally developed by Facebook for internal use. Since its public release, GraphQL has been compared to REST and other architectures.

In this article, Toptal JavaScript Developer Marcos Henrique da Silva demonstrates how to create a GraphQL Node.js API, and explains why you should try it, too.

11-minute readContinue Reading
Marcos Henrique da Silva

Marcos Henrique da Silva

Marcos is passionate about REST architecture, Agile development, and JavaScript. He has 8+ years of experience focusing on web apps.

The Back End: Using Gatsby.js and Node.js for Static Site Updates

Static websites are simple and fast, but it’s also possible to automate updates to them to keep them fresh and relevant. Find out how to generate daily-updated HTML pages that track the latest releases of popular GitHub repositories.

10-minute readContinue Reading
Furkan Yavuz

Furkan Yavuz

Furkan is an experienced full-stack developer who has worked remotely since 2016. His main expertise includes Java, Angular, and Heroku.

Benchmarking A Node.js Promise

You can just write sequentially executed code in JavaScript, but should you?

In this article, Toptal Freelance JavaScript Developer Omar Waleed tests the widespread Node.js belief that synchronous code degrades performance and is, in a sense, just plain evil. Is this really true?

7-minute readContinue Reading
Omar Waleed

Omar Waleed

Omar is a full-stack developer and architect with over 4 years of experience working with companies of varying sizes.

How to Implement T9 Search in iOS

T9 predictive text has been around for ages, and it lost relevance with the advent of modern smartphones. However, T9 can still be a useful addition to certain types of apps on iOS.

In this article, Toptal Swift Developer George Vashakidze explains why T9 can still be useful and practical, and how you can add it to your next iOS app.

8-minute readContinue Reading
George Vashakidze

George Vashakidze

George is an extremely motivated and hardworking mobile developer with extensive experience working with iOS and Android.

How to Build a React Native QR Scanner: An RNCamera Tutorial

Cross-platform mobile apps are increasingly being built with React Native. But how can you scan for QR codes and augment the user’s camera view when they’re present?

6-minute readContinue Reading
Bassam Seif

Bassam Seif

Having founded multiple startups and worked with Microsoft, Bassam specializes in highly scalable, full-stack JavaScript applications.

Using Spring Boot for WebSocket Implementation with STOMP

The WebSocket protocol is one of the ways to make your application handle real-time messages. The most common alternatives are long polling and server-sent events. This article shows how to implement WebSockets with the Spring Boot framework and use STOMP for effective client-server communication.

9-minute readContinue Reading
Tomasz Dąbrowski

Tomasz Dąbrowski

Tomasz has more than 20 years of experience with Java apps, and worked for companies like Hewlett-Packard, as well as Silicon Valley startups.

Toptal Engineering Expert

Gabriel is a highly efficient and reliable professional who possesses a broad skill set for web application development. He's been working on a range of products and clients—from working on scalability problems in production engineering teams at Shopify and Autodesk to launching new applications for startups. Most of his work consists of leading technical teams, by creating an easy development environment, fixing technical debts, providing best practices code examples, and mentoring devs.
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Previously At

Shopify

Most-read Articles

Marcos Henrique da Silva

Creating a Secure REST API in Node.js

By Marcos Henrique da Silva
13-minute readContinue Reading

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