[jrgnsd]

My experience working through Toptal has been mostly positive (although I haven't done a contract through them in quite a while).

I failed my initial application due to my inability to solve a couple of algorithm specific tests as other commenters have mentioned. I reappllied a couple of months later, did a couple of codility tests to ensure I'd pass this time, and flew through the rest of the process.

Yes, their signup process will potentially disquallify a couple of good devs, but it will also weed out a lot of bad devs that can't take the time to learn the solutions to common algorithm problems.

Once in, they have a variety of jobs available, some good, some bad. Overall I don't mind working for them. I've been happy with the Upwork dev's I've hired so far, so can't comment on if I'll hire through Toptal.