Several stage process, 30 minutes intro to check you can speak English, then 2 (presumably more) rounds of technical interviews under extreme time pressure. They use Codility to test algorithms and give you 30 mins each for 3 problems to solve, and want optimised approaches in that time, which is unrealistic and not representative of any role I've had in 20 years of software development. After that the live-coding interview was 15 minutes to solve a problem (not that hard without the time and pressure constraints) with the interviewer sharing your screen and watching what you do, I failed to solve it in the time allowed (despite being given a couple of extra minutes by the interviewer to his credit) and that was that for my application, 1 minute of work by myself after the interview and I had the result, but that's not what they are testing for. If you are a machine and can perform under harsh time pressure then you'll do well, does that mean you are in the top 3% of software engineers though? I doubt it, I know that sounds like sour grapes but the whole process seems designed to sift, maybe they get that many applicants they need to, seems an odd criteria though - when do you ever get 15 minutes only to fix a bug or write a function? I believe their recruitment process is fundamentally flawed and if it accurately represent the working conditions of a Toptal role then I have no desire to work in this way. The process as a whole represents the very worst of software engineering recruitment, shame that as an industry we can't move past this lazy approach to the testing of candidates, it would've been nice to have access to some freelance work through them but i'm not re-applying to get put through that mill again, it's not worth it.

First you apply. you will get a link for a screening interview. (you can edit your interview if the time is not suitable for you. One screen video call 15min. they arrange the technical interview (you have 48h deadline to start it) One DSA assesment 1h (3 exercises)