Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For Employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Toptal

      Engaged Employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay & benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: Toptal reviews | Toptal jobs | Toptal salaries | Toptal benefits | Toptal conversations
      Toptal interviewsToptal Freelance Front End Developer interviewsToptal interview


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Center
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy & Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent Posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Indeed, Inc. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls," and logo are proprietary trademarks of Indeed, Inc.

      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalized job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Freelance Front End Developer Interview

      Aug 12, 2015
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Los Angeles, CA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Easy interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Toptal (Los Angeles, CA) in Aug 2015

      Interview

      The process was extremely slow with multiple delays and reschedulings. It took about two months from applying to get a decision. For the interviews: the first interview was the same as the other reviews described, a quick screening to make sure that you can speak English fluently. The second step had three Codility questions. This is where I thought the process started to break down. Front end developers typically aren't taught and don't use the kind of complex sorting algorithms that Codility likes to use in its tests, and Codility isn't a very friendly platform to work with if you're using JavaScript, which it wasn't designed for. Despite that, I passed the algorithms test with a good score and moved onto the third step, a live coding exercise over Skype. This fell flat. The question I got was easy, but it was one that you'd usually solve with a framework or a templating library, which you weren't allowed to use. Trying to solve it in under 20 minutes in raw JS over Skype didn't go too well - I ran out of time, and therefore was declined as a candidate. It didn't help that the interviewer was in another country, it was late at night on that end, and the wifi on that end kept dropping sound and the screen sharing connection. All in all, the drawn out and disorganized interviewing process left me thinking that it was basically a waste of time. If it's this much of a headache just getting on the list for projects, you have to think that the projects and company support, if you do, are probably going to have the same kinds of issues. The interviewer was nice enough to say that I could reapply in three months, but I doubt that I will.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Be ready for the abstract brainteaser questions that Codility likes to use. They probably won't have anything to do with the coding you've done in a work setting. For the live coding step, it probably depends on your language(s) and background. I would expect a typical whiteboarding question, substituting Skype for the whiteboard. If you hate whiteboarding under time pressure, you probably won't care much for it.
      Answer question
      7