I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Toptal (Johannesburg) in Dec 2019
Interview
Toptal has laid out the steps of interview clearly on their website. I will tell you my experience of interviwing with toptal.
First step is a skype interview where the interviewer will talk about your prior experience, resume or anything general. The purpose of interview is to check your english speaking skills. Anyone with decent oral skills in english should be through this round easily
Second step is a programming test, where you are given three programming question to solve in 90 mins on Codility. Codility tests judges the code on Correctness and Performance, which is different from what other similar coding platforms do like leetcode or hackerrank.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Q: Find the shortest consecutive vacation days from an array
They will call you first and ask a few questions then proceed to ask a few questions. After which you will have to take an algorithm test. After the algorithm test you will head on for the technical interview
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first stage compromises three algorithms to solve within a set time
Pretty straightforward interview process, just the time for completion should be a bit higher regarding the algorithmic technical interview. HR interview is perfectly organized. . . . . . . . . . . .
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
4 algorithm questions for different data structures
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Toptal (New York, NY) in Jun 2022
Interview
The interview process starts with a communication interview to determine your ability to speak English. After that it you go on to the three question challenge on codily. You get 90 mins to take the test but don't waste your time if you use a popular language like python. I was accused of cheating and banned for life. I did not look up one solution at all. Not like you can copy and paste the question. One of the questions was converting seconds to a string representing weeks, months, days etc instead of seconds. Tell me how many ways you can do this without divmod, //, and %? You would also have to have if statements. You could do something strange like a nested dictionary but why? That's sloppy. Of course most of your solutions are going to look similar outside variable names. Flawed algorithms I told the engineer who emailed me. What a waste of time. Your best bet to pass is to use a language that is not popular so many solutions out there will not match or just write something outlandish but works. I have worked with people who write code like that and it works but it's sloppy and hard to follow. The even crazier part is I didn't hit the minimum score to pass but they wanted to hear feedback before they made a decision. You mean to tell me I cheated and didn't get 50% on your score sheet? Are you serious? Anyone can copy paste edit. I've been working for 10 years and have a high paying job where I write code off the top of my head because I have to since I work in a classified area. THERE IS NO INTERNET. Why the would I copy and paste for this test? I deployed software I wrote off the top of my head in the field and it works well. I could improve my online code problem skills as I did not practice for this but I never cheated. Flawed system. Don't waste your time! Bad business model
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
convert seconds to string formatted (2w2d, 4m2s, etc)
