I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Toptal in Feb 2022
Interview
It's a long process that took me a couple of months. They don't tell you ahead of time what's involved. Be prepared, it's A LOT of work. None of the steps were particularly difficult, but you have to put in the time and effort.
1. General interview, 30-60 min (process, skills, case study walkthrough)
2. Take-home assignment, minimum of 8 hours (design challenge, unpaid)
3. Second interview, 30-60 min (spend about 20 min presenting assignment, follow-up questions)
4. Received offer
5. Portfolio preparation (must include a minimum of 6 projects, 6-9 slides per project)
6. Portfolio review (I went through 2 review cycles before having it approved)
7. Portfolio approval
8. Legal documents and payment setup
I spent about twice the suggested time on the take-home assignment. I passed all interviews quite easily. They were very happy with my portfolio, only had to make minor edits.
But it's a lot of work and I have no idea if any of it will pay off. It hasn't been a transparent process and for that reason I'm not very impressed with Toptal yet.
I applied online. I interviewed at Toptal (Richmond, VA) in Mar 2021
Interview
When I applied to be a UX designer on the Toptal network, the interview process was a four step process - an initial screening, a portfolio review, an interview talking through one of my projects on my portfolio (which I got to choose), and a test project & presentation. This was a really in-depth process, and they really want to see a designer's thought process behind their designs, so if you apply, make sure you're prepared with all of your design artifacts before your calls (for example- I was asked to talk through my script for usability tests/reasoning behind specific UI elements/etc.). Overall, the interview process requires a good bit of work, but in my experience, I felt it was a fair process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Please walk us through your best UX project on your portfolio.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Toptal in Jan 2019
Interview
After an online application, I was scheduled to do a 1:1 phone interview with one of the recruiters. Then soon after this, I received a link where I had to upload a portfolio of previous UX design projects outlining the process undertaken during each project.
