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.

authors 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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authors 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.

Building a Data Warehouse Data Quality Process

Data quality is a crucial element of any successful data warehouse solution. As the complexity of data warehouses increases, so does the need for data quality processes.

In this article, Toptal Data Quality Developer Alexander Hauskrecht outlines how you can ensure a high degree of data quality and why this process is so important.

16 minute readContinue Reading

Alexander Hauskrecht

Alexander has more than 20 years of experience in data warehousing in various roles and environments. He has extensive experience in insurance and banking.

Full-stack NLP With React: Ionic vs. Cordova vs. React Native

JavaScript frameworks based on React can help you build a fast, reliable mobile app, but it’s not always easy to determine which framework is best for your project. Choosing the wrong framework can result in an app with slow and redundant code.

JavaScript expert Sean Wang builds the same natural language processing mobile application using Cordova, Ionic, and React Native, then discusses the advantages and limitations of each.

25+ minute readContinue Reading

Shanglun Wang

Sean is a passionate polyglot: a full-stack wizard, sysadmin, and data scientist. He’s also developed market intelligence software.

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SQL Indexes Explained, Pt. 2

Sorting a table can make some queries faster—but the maintenance cost is untenable. Enter real database indexes and their most common implementation structure: the B-tree.

10 minute readContinue Reading

Mirko Marović

Mirko designs and develops massive, extreme-workload databases. He also trains software developers on databases and SQL.

Quality Assurance Testing Perfected: A User Flow Tutorial

As products and services deploy faster and faster, quality assurance (QA) has to adapt and deliver more coverage in less time while maintaining high quality.

In this article, Toptal Software Engineer Jade Russel Hancox examines how we can use the user flow to boost the speed and efficiency of QA processes without compromising on quality.

10 minute readContinue Reading

Jade Russel Hancox

Jade is an award-winning quality assurance professional with extensive experience in manual QA and the automation of APIs, UIs, and databases.

Hybrid Power: Flutter Advantages and Benefits

Google’s Flutter framework has quickly caught on among developers who want to target Android and iOS from the same codebase—and businesses who know the value of a single project team yielding presence in both markets.

15 minute readContinue Reading

Asad Jibran Ahmed

Jibran, the author of a book on building web applications with Django, is a full-stack web/mobile developer with 10+ years of experience.

React Test-driven Development: From User Stories to Production

Employing a test-driven development (TDD) approach in React projects tends to be straightforward, especially with the aid of Jest and Enzyme. However, there are a few things to look out for.

In this article, Toptal JavaScript Developer Dave Hyungmok Lee demonstrates his React TDD process, from epics and user stories to development and production.

11 minute readContinue Reading

Dave Hyungmok Lee

Dave is the creator of a top-ranking Android app in the Korean market. He excels in multiple programming languages and frameworks.

A Complete Guide to Testing React Hooks

A relatively recent addition to React, hooks have already changed React development for the better through improved code readability and state management. But how do we test them?

In this article, Toptal React Developer Avi Aryan outlines why it is crucial to test hooks and introduces us to his React Hooks testing routine.

12 minute readContinue Reading

Avi Aryan

Avi is a full-stack developer skilled in Python, JavaScript, and Go. He’s also a multiple-time Google Summer of Code mentor.

Toptal Engineering Expert

Gabriel Courtemanche

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.