CEO of Toptal here. If you like, I can ensure we review your profile and client matching history to see if there's anything we overlooked. I'm available on Slack or taso@toptal.com. We’ll see if we can optimize your visibility to clients needing backend/data optimization experts.
While we look into this, Opire (an open-source bounties site) has lots of short-term opportunities.
I quit using Toptal because I was living in Western Europe and got extremely lowballed at a given point. As if I simply had to match the rates of people from Eastern Europe or Northern Africa.
I got a better hourly rate through the platform when still living in Latin America. Before Covid, it was amazing.
I'm doing my last engagement on toptal rn as well. Will quit after. The company I m working for is awesome but toptal part not so much anymore. From staff to FUD. They cut down my rate to 1/3 of what I used to charge few years back. (They still bill client 2x what I get, of course).
I hope Toptal has changed since I interviewed with them in 2015, because it was one of the worst tech interview experiences I had in a while. The interviewer was rude and clearly inexperienced in the tech stack he was asking questions about. I did a take home excersise and it was clear that he didn't even bother to read the code and just wanted to outsmart me.
In addition to Opire for short-term opportunities (aka bounties), there is Algora.
In fact, there are a few of such bounty platforms in my notes, but Algora seems to be the one with the most traction: in terms to new tasks to work on and the bounty amounts being competitively priced.
Curious, are there any exceptions to your coding test (I applied back in 2021 or so, not sure if this is still a requirement)?
The test didn't like my solutions/speed (which meant I couldn't move forward), however, I'd say I'm more than qualified to be a Toptal dev (see projects in my HN profile [1]).
I only passed the coding test because they asked me exactly the same question the second time. I was definitely one of their top developers there, got great reviews and got approached directly for some great projects so it was pretty obvious I was an above average performer there.
Coding tests suck for people from countries that have a more practical mindset at universities. I remember needed algorithms exactly once where I had to apply algorithms to cluster 100,000's of map pointers and every built-in solution was completely slow.
Got it to an agreeable performance, which was cool. However using the Geo capabilities of the database directly was much faster, and could be cached for all users, so I just used that instead in the end.
Didn’t they actually see the object on multiple radars using multiple types of detection methods? Assuming that’s true, the camera glare story seems unlikely.
The video states that there's something there, but its heat signature is causing the glare (the video is in IR). Was the object flying steadily and rotating weirdly throughout the video? You can't see how the object is flying, the smooth motion and weird rotation you perceive is the effect of the glare!
The problem is they built campuses and feel stupid about devaluing them. Combine that with a backwards mindset and, for most companies, the situation becomes clear.
You mean executives didn't need to build giant monuments to themselves they can sit in and command from upon high down for whatever idea they justified it with to attract talent and they only needed to, I don't know, compensate people adequately with reasonable work life balance to retain people, perhaps with a mixture of interesting work to attract some types of talent?
There is no way any of the FANG companies care about keeping their campuses occupied for the sole purpose of justifying their costs. If remote work resulted in happier employees and by extension more productive employees that trade-off would be a no-brainer. The real reason is they genuinely think in-person benefits outweigh remote benefits for most employees. The internal employee surveys show this to be the case. Most employees want the hybrid model. HN is a bubble.
Did all of the media outlets organize together for months in advance to be able to release everything today? The content and production quality makes it seem like this release was planned months in advance.
Also, assuming they did, what’s the process all of these news organizations go through in order to plan such a release on the same exact day? The planning of the release in such a coordinated way is almost questionable itself, though it would be good to get insight into this.
Hey, former software engineer at the Guardian here. Yes the news outlets are collaborating on stories too big for a single one.
The last I can remember was the Panama papers, which followed a very similar process. I seem to remember they all synchronized through the ICIJ [1], and more or less each journalist would cover their own territory / domain. Then they agreed on a reasonable date to release the news.
They shared more than just information, but also technical infrastructure to do the investigation.
So, if the ICIJ coordinated the last one, then who coordinated this one? It seems like Forbidden Stories is the main organizer though they also make it seem like “The Pegasus Project” is the organizer as well, which seems rather confusing.
> Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organisation, and Amnesty International initially had access to the leaked list and shared access with media partners as part of the Pegasus project, a reporting consortium.
> The investigation by the Guardian and 16 other media organisations suggests widespread and continuing abuse of NSO’s hacking spyware, Pegasus, which the company insists is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists.
Usually, joint investigations between multiple media outlets are released in a planned fashion. It's rare to see 17 news outlets collaborate on one story, but when "more than 180 journalists" have been targeted with Pegasus, it may be that the targeted journalists worked together on this investigation, using their exploited devices as evidence.
In the US, journalists were long reluctant to discuss Gov surveillance abuses in any meaningful way - even when they were targeted.
Snowden basically dragged news orgs into reporting it. After that initial rush tho, reporting was largely muted. Most DoJ and other abuses were minimally covered if at all.
That improved somewhat during the next administration but authoritarian deference still seemed in play to me.
> Le premier sang venait d'être versé. M. Ribière, pourtant, exigeait de reprendre le combat ; non pas à mort, car il pensait se marier le lendemain même, et risquer sa vie pour une insulte lancée au cours d'un débat politique n'est guère de notre temps.
Translating approximately to:
> The first blood had just been drawn. Mr Ribière, nevertheless, demanded the duel be resumed ; not to death, for he expected to get married just the day after, and risking one's life for an abuse thrown during a political debate is hardly fashionable.
I wonder if any graduate of a German university has ever run afoul of the various American state laws requiring candidates for public office to swear that they have never fought a duel.
By definition, this is not considered a "duel", hence I think you could claim in good faith "no".
Wiki: Modern academic fencing, the Mensur, is neither a duel nor a sport. It is a traditional way of training and educating character and personality; thus, in a mensur bout, there is neither winner nor loser.
The study was done by Robert Half, a recruitment company that is extremely old school and works with mostly antiquated companies. This is simply confirmation that many of those companies are behind the curve in their culture and mindset.
While we look into this, Opire (an open-source bounties site) has lots of short-term opportunities.