Vantaggi
Very well organized, down to earth, pragmatic mindset. Excellent project "marketplace", proper payments, great and supportive background.
Svantaggi
Sanity ends when a client complains. Toptal doesn't care whether it was the developer's fault, and will always blame you at the end. I had two such clients and it resulted in terminating my contract. The first one was a shady Italian company which didn't tell that they are actually building a prostitute website. Their staff was rude and didn't answer questions. I started on a Friday afternoon, part-time. On Monday they fired me for "not contributing to the project". I barely had time to look at the source codes. Toptal investigated the complaint, found that I was not at fault and terminated contract with the client. In the second case the client was a porn producer (yes, somehow) who had no idea about anything. He hired me on a hourly basis and requested me to work overtime, even on weekends. I did so, even put free days into his projects. Then he got the first invoice, realized that he can't afford this, and complained that I am "not effective enough" for him. Toptal again investigated, they've been looking into my sources for two weeks, and again found that I am not at fault, my code is proper and I delivered the solutions in a reasonable time. Then I found that I am not invited to projects any more. For several weeks I had no jobs, then I asked what is going on. I was told that my contract is under review for "repeated complaints". Finally, about a month later, I was informed that my contract will be terminated. The recruiters were against it, but it was decided on a higher level.