After moonlighting as a freelancer off and on for the last 10 years, I started looking for opportunities that were more stable. That’s when I came across Toptal. I decided I’d apply to become a Freelance Developer with them and join the Toptal web developers Community. They have an extremely interesting hiring process, giving candidates the option to write a blog post on their personal blog explaining why they want to join Toptal to receive priority access. This was extremely intriguing. I have never seen such a unique requirement for an onboarding process. Since I’ve mostly been writing posts on the TaskBurst blog of late, adding some interesting content to my personal blog for priority access seemed like a great opportunity.
Why should freelancers join Toptal? Here are the 5 reasons why I personally want to join their Web Developer Community.
1 – Find and Managing Projects is a Hassle
As a freelancer, finding new clients, managing current projects, and getting invoices paid can take up a considerable amount of time. Time spent doing administrative tasks is not nearly as fun or profitable as doing actual software development work. By joining Toptal, I can focus my attention on what I love to do most; software development. Toptal’s staff can deal with the aspects of freelancing that I find less interesting and enjoyable.
2 – Leveraging Toptal’s Network and Customer Base
Lets face it, even though I’ve been a software developer for 17 years, the chances of me landing freelance projects from the likes of Hewlett Packard, J.P. Morgan, Pfizer, and zendesk are not all that high. Plus working within the Toptal network ensures I will be working with higher end clients and other top professionals in my field.
3 – The Community
Working with the top 3% of the software development talent pool, the “best of the best”, has major benefits. From networking opportunities, to engineering blog posts, to local events and conferences, joining the Toptal community means your working with top tier professionals. With the frantic pace of technology progression in the software development domain, having a network of trusted peers can help ensure a quicker ramp up time on the latest and greatest available technologies.
4 – Ability to Work Remote
I worked 100% remote for almost 4 years. It’s not for everybody. It definitely takes discipline. But the freedom to work anywhere can far out weight the need to be tethered to a physical location because you need to drive to the office everyday. With a laptop, a cellphone, and Internet, you can work literally anywhere in the world.
5 – For Love of Programming and Technology
To be honest, the more I think about joining Toptal, the more excited I get. Being part of such an elite group and having access to people who live, breath, and sleep technology would be an exhilarating, challenging, and unique experience. Even though I’ve been programming for over 17 years, I’ve always loved learning new technology and using it to solve business problems and automate processes. Joining Toptal will offer me the opportunity to learn and to grow, both professionally and technically. The experience will be yet another positive evolution in my programming career.
Toptal is a unique opportunity to freelance in a manner that is similar to contracting and without the administrative chores that come with handling your own clients. I’m excited about the prospects ahead and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me.
