1 - The first interview is a brief (about 20 minutes) behavioral interview. Nothing to be scared of here. As long as you are who you say you are on your application and you can speak English you will be just fine. 2 - Next, you are given a link to an online coding challenge, which you need to complete within two days. It consists of 3 problems which should be solved in 90 minutes once you start. My particular problems varied in difficulty. The first one was very easy, the second was medium and the last one was hard. You need to think about efficiency here, as they give you the specific time and memory requirements for your code. So move fast, but code efficiently. 3 - If you pass that, you will have a live interview with a Toptal engineer over Skype or Hangouts. You will be asked to share your screen so the engineer can see you code in your own preferred environment. I had two questions and they were both very simple. The catch is that they are timed. I had 15 minutes to solve each of them, which turned out to be more than needed. 4 - If everything goes smoothly, you will be given your final project specifications. How long this takes you will depend on your experience. But I'd say you should expect to spend about 20-30 hours on your project. You have 2 weeks to complete it, but start early so you're not rushing at the end. If you have any questions, clarify them with the developer who you will present to. Don't just assume everything on your own. The presentation consists of showing off what you built and then being asked questions about it. My interviewer asked me to see my code and how I implemented some of the features and also asked questions to make sure I actually understood how things like APIs and HTTP requests work. 5 - If you pass the presentation, you are in!

The interview process has been structured and professional so far. It started with the initial application and screening, followed by an online coding assessment with algorithm-style questions focused on correctness, edge cases, and problem solving under time pressure. After completing that stage, I was invited to schedule a live technical interview. Communication has been clear, with detailed instructions about the interview format, environment requirements, screen sharing, and expectations around working without external assistance. The process feels rigorous and time-sensitive,.