I'd been working in corporate sector of IT as full-time employee for 6 years until one day I was offered a contractor position. This offer required me to leave the steady job and enter the world of freelance and contractor work. And from then on I didn't look back.
Of course working in large companies has a lot of advantages: regular working hours, guaranteed salary and often - future in the company. Freelance can't and will never be able to guarantee that.
But large teams also have common downsides: one person is responsible only for small part of the project meaning it's difficult to overview the whole system and to analyse what's best for the customer; also it's hard to introduce new technologies due to legacy issues and also the value of one particular engineer is not very significant.
Freelance gives the freedom that corporate job can never provide: the freedom to choose clients, working hours, technologies, office (home/coworking/personal office rent), even your rate. All this at the cost of stability. You always need to be in search of new clients and projects when you see that current one is going to end. Be ready that your contract is closed and you need to move on. To be up-to-date with the technologies and trends. And also be ready for interviews, lots of them. This may be stressful but it pays back.
Field of freelance can be stressful for the employers too. How can I be sure that this engineer is really qualified and reliable? And if I need a whole team of them (often you do need more than one). I need to make sure they are experienced enough to understand my goals and the vision of the project. All this is hard to achieve with freelance contractors whom you don't know. You have to have your own team of HR and senior developers to handle interviews with candidates. And if you don't all is left is rely on their portfolio and their communication which is rather risky.
That's where Toptal comes in. It's a service uniting top 3% on freelances thoughtfully selected to match any challenging task and customers in search of skilled and reliable engineers. The main difference between Toptal and other recruiting services it that a developer should undergo a series of tests (communication, tech, test project, etc.) only to be registered within the system. Which increases the value of each Toptal member and customers can be sure to be satisfied with the results.
I personally look forward to this amazing opportunity to be a part of such great team!
Of course working in large companies has a lot of advantages: regular working hours, guaranteed salary and often - future in the company. Freelance can't and will never be able to guarantee that.
But large teams also have common downsides: one person is responsible only for small part of the project meaning it's difficult to overview the whole system and to analyse what's best for the customer; also it's hard to introduce new technologies due to legacy issues and also the value of one particular engineer is not very significant.
Freelance gives the freedom that corporate job can never provide: the freedom to choose clients, working hours, technologies, office (home/coworking/personal office rent), even your rate. All this at the cost of stability. You always need to be in search of new clients and projects when you see that current one is going to end. Be ready that your contract is closed and you need to move on. To be up-to-date with the technologies and trends. And also be ready for interviews, lots of them. This may be stressful but it pays back.
Field of freelance can be stressful for the employers too. How can I be sure that this engineer is really qualified and reliable? And if I need a whole team of them (often you do need more than one). I need to make sure they are experienced enough to understand my goals and the vision of the project. All this is hard to achieve with freelance contractors whom you don't know. You have to have your own team of HR and senior developers to handle interviews with candidates. And if you don't all is left is rely on their portfolio and their communication which is rather risky.
That's where Toptal comes in. It's a service uniting top 3% on freelances thoughtfully selected to match any challenging task and customers in search of skilled and reliable engineers. The main difference between Toptal and other recruiting services it that a developer should undergo a series of tests (communication, tech, test project, etc.) only to be registered within the system. Which increases the value of each Toptal member and customers can be sure to be satisfied with the results.
I personally look forward to this amazing opportunity to be a part of such great team!
