zlacker

Whether they are malicious or not, I cannot say. But anecdotally, are they a time-waster? Absolutely.

I took their generalist test and scored perfect. It was actually not so hard, but it tested some language things (a couple/few languages), some Unix things, SQL, etc. It was right up my alley.

After completing the 30? min test, I got an email saying they were enthusiastic about me and would like to continue the process.

I think the process was to become an interviewer; I forget now.

Time passed... weeks, and then months. I emailed them and got nothing back.

Then I checked Glassdoor (YMMV). There were a lot of negative stories about internal politics, gender issues, leadership problems, "insane" bad manager stories, etc. I don't know how Glassdoor works, but perhaps it was all lies; or perhaps it was very true; perhaps it has been erased (pay to play).

Nonetheless, I parked them in the corner of my mind behind Toptal.

>>z9znz+(OP)
> Then I checked Glassdoor (YMMV). There were a lot of negative stories about internal politics, gender issues, leadership problems, "insane" bad manager stories, etc. I don't know how Glassdoor works, but perhaps it was all lies; or perhaps it was very true; perhaps it has been erased (pay to play).

Are we looking at the same Triplebyte? Their reviews on Glassdoor are pretty good

edit: There are some nasty ones further back, the latest being Feb 2020

>>pcthro+c8
Glassdoor isn't really trustworthy: companies can pay it to nuke bad reviews.

>>z9znz+(OP)
I had a silly interview sequence with Toptal. Aced first interview. Was told "that's a record for solving that".. so, got to do a live, not take-home test for the second interview. Was clearly within 3 minutes of finishing up the last bits on the test suite on the solution for a 2 hour long test when the buzzer rang. Nope, no grace -- you clearly haven't proved yourself. You have to do the take-home ( A 4 day window for a take-home test ... which means, you need put in 40 hours!) I told them "no thanks".

>>42e6e8+rh
For Toptal, I progressed through the initial interview, the two timed algorithm challenges, and faced the human-observed algorithm challenge. I passed the first of two tests with him, and on the second test I realized at 17 minutes out of 20 minutes that my approach was totally not going to work for the complete problem set. So at that point, no matter what I did, I was out.

I didn't even get the "privilege" of doing the 40 hour take home project (which culminated in a formal business presentation that some people reportely failed despite turning in a polished project".

Later I found complaints of Toptal members that they were pressured to provide low wage offers to get gigs.

Overall it felt like perhaps an ernest initial effort to make a better system and a quality consulting firm, but it got perverted into a heartless profit machine. I'm glad I didn't progress to the 40 hour take-home stage.

>>pcthro+c8
Another thing we can do, especially on HN (but also for those of you who may be in Cali where you actually meet a lot of humans in this space) is to ask, "Have I ever met a happy Toptal consultant?"

Has anyone here on HN?

>>z9znz+pm
I'm not really sure where Toptal fits into this. Triplebyte is not a consultant agency

>>z9znz+pm
Toptal is consulting? I hadn't heard that before. I know they were notorious for long unpaid take-homes, so I skipped them. They claimed a pass rate of 3.5% but I figured that reflected the low percentage of visitors gullible or desperate enough to do the huge take-home.

>>pcthro+Wv
Sorry, the Toptal mention in my original post was not necessary. My experience with both companies was a waste of time and a disappointment, with similar characteristics along the way.

I group them in the category of companies that has an attractive proposition but turns out to be much less lovely once known better.