Toptal interview questions

My interview process was held in January 2020, I first had an interview with the recruiter, she asks me the regular questions about experience, salary expectation, etc, no questions about your thinking, mentality, work approach, organization, agile experiences, etc, the ones the distingue great engineers from average ones. After this, comes of course the part where Toptal and many other companies fail, and that is the technical test, which is a tricky scientific exercise that does not prove or show the real job an engineer has to perform on a daily basis. Yes, we get paid to solve problems but not ones like this ( like almost never ), especially if you are a front end dev that works with UI elements, "painting" data coming from the backend on the screen, understanding browser behavior, etc. I'm React Js dev with experience in large complex apps and I have never faced challenges like this, nowadays, we get paid to build products and help companies become successful. This exercise seems also way more focused on C.S degree persons than the rest, which is wrong. I read the test instruction, saw some weird graphic on the screen, and just close my laptop after a few minutes, my days where I used to do silly algorithms katas are long gone, don't think I have anything to prove in this sense. Do you know how many great engineers that are not able to solve this type of puzzles or don't even want to do it I can find? probably quite a few...

Toptal application process is below average at best. They posture that they only select the top 3% of candidates, but fail to describe how they consider "top." From my experience, they mainly consider years of experience, not quality. And the "so-called" rigorous application process includes basic tests and rushed webcam interviews. I've never wasted so much time on an application process that showed how little regard they give to applicants. Toptal will fail to attract top talent if it continues down this path.