Toptal reviews

Toxic and dysfunctional company culture fueled by lack of stability, very low job security, employees and/or managers are punished for low scores in company satisfaction surveys. At first glance things seem very well organized, but once you start to get to know the inner workings you realized how messed up and toxic it is.

I'm sorry to say that this is another one of those privately owned, medium-sized companies that is doomed to fail due to its "Elon Musk at Twitter"-style of senior management by its CEO, Taso Du Val. Despite his early success in launching this talent agency's platform, Taso has cultivated a culture of negativity and fear, fueled by his paranoia, complete lack of trust in his own employees, and sheer greed. Coming from a much larger, very well run company, my experience after being lured away by Toptal was a shock to the system. After eight 1:1 interviews, an extensive background check, and completing an extremely intense screening assignment, I felt honored to join a company that touts its "rigorous screening process" to vet the talent that they place for their clients. The CEO was on the invite list for nearly every Zoom meeting that I attended, each of which was recorded for him to review at his leisure. In a post-pandemic world I appreciate people who turn their cameras on so I can see my colleagues, but I completely respect those who don't. It's a personal choice. At Toptal, though, almost everyone has their camera on at all times. That is, except for Taso, who will randomly join calls in a quasi-stealth mode by somehow appearing at the very bottom of the video attendee list without warning. Essentially, he is ALWAYS watching. As a result, the 1000+ employees work day-to-day on edge, hoping/praying that Taso isn't listening in and ready to pounce. When he does, heads roll. Every discussion and every decision begins and ends with WWTT (What Would Taso Think). One day you might have a meaningful discussion with a colleague that gives you hope that some progress can be made. The next, you send that same person a Slack message, only to learn that their account has been deactivated with no explanation. And, that's really the long and short of it. People are let go with no explanation, acknowledgement, and virtually no severance. They're just gone and the revolving door continues to spin in turbo mode. The bottom line is that Taso could not care less about his employees. It's very apparent that he cares only about himself. There are so many other tell-tale signs of this bad company that I could warn you about. But, I hope this is enough. My salary increase was 42% to come here, and it was not worth it. Don't do it. Nuff said.