[knuthsat]

This was my experience too. After the initial period where recruiters are a bit afraid to give you your first engagement everything starts flowing really smooth.

I started at Upwork and was constantly writing proposals and struggling with the search to find relevant jobs.

But on Toptal, even after an abrupt end of the contract I get something else in less than a week and it's zero effort from me and all effort from the Toptal team.

Even if I get bored and want a change, announcing the end of contract turns on the avalanche of offers from the Toptal team.

It's just insanely smooth and I had no idea I'd find something like that, initially.

[mgraupner]

Other comment mentions difficult onboarding process at Toptal with 3 interviews, is this also your impression?

[wofo]

Their interview process is well documented (for instance, here https://clevercoder.net/2017/09/04/toptal-passed-interview/). My experience was that it was doable, though you need to brush up your algorithm skills and have luck with the problems you get.

[bckygldstn]

The interview process is onerous more than difficult: mostly leetcode style questions that need lots of practice for, plus a basic but time-consuming take-home task.

And for me the scheduling was super difficult: the whole process took weeks, with the only times available at odd hours West Coast US time, and my recruiter flaking and rescheduling once.

Beyond some basic level of coding, it's more a test of patience and time.

[knuthsat]

Automatically evaluated leet coding session (2 hours) + Live English language check interview (15 mins) + 2 week fake template project + Live coding session (30 mins).

I was fortunate enough to pass everything without additional attempts and had no job at that time. Some of my friends got in after 1 year (after you fail at some step, 2nd attempt is delayed), some never managed to complete the whole process.

[vultour]

It's their whole sales pitch - "hire the top 3% freelance talent". You're not getting in through a casual 30 minute conversation.