Turing.com and Toptal. Legit?

Toptal are some of the best people I've worked with, both as an applicant and someone hiring. They're expensive, and a few low quality people slip between the cracks, but overall good.

Turing however has been dodgy. I've applied when they first started. The application test was something ridiculous like build a full stack app, with very precise requirements like using MySQL for certain parts. It was a full scope project at no pay and no verification they exist. And they seemed more architecture focused than user focused, which was a turn off. So I ignored it.

Later I get this email:

"Congrats on scoring 100% in Turing's basic JavaScript programming test on May 05, 2019! You completed Step 1 towards being matched with top Silicon Valley companies that want to work full-time with remote Back End engineers."

I don't know how I completed a test I didn't do. That is as much a red flag as some Nigerian prince wanting to give me his inheritance money.

From what I can tell, Turing.com scrapes emails from open source contributions.

Turing.com has been sending automated emails to the address I use for contributing to Open Source, but uses the name of the maintainer of the repo I contributed to.

I would stay away from them for that reason alone.

FWIW, worked with multiple people through Toptal from all over the world from US to North Africa to Central Asia.

I’m not sure of the commission Toptal takes their min hourly rate we’ve been quoted is now approx $80 p/h for PHP dev.

Edit: the minimum rate is $80 p/h, seen up to $140 but wouldn’t assume that’s the ceiling.

Lots of companies are hiring remote staff currently if consulting is not your thing.