Toptal Launches Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Talent Specializations

The new service offerings will leverage Toptal’s unparalleled network of global talent to help businesses staff artificial intelligence and data science projects

Toptal, a global network of top talent in business, design, and technology that enables companies to scale their teams, on-demand, announced the launch of its two new on-demand talent specializations to meet the rising demand for skilled artificial intelligence and data science engineers. Tapping into Toptal’s private network of highly skilled software professionals, the new specialized service will connect organizations with freelance artificial intelligence and data science professionals who are experts in machine learning, deep learning, data architecture, and data mining.

“Businesses across every sector are moving quickly to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and data science optimization. For many of them, access to high-quality talent is the critical hurdle,” said Taso Du Val, Toptal co-founder and CEO. “With these service offerings, Toptal is providing businesses with the unique opportunity to quickly staff their AI and data science initiatives with elite talent. Our company was made by engineers for engineers, so we care deeply about matching our clients with experts who have the exact skills and real-world experience they need to realize their goals.”

“We’ve worked with Toptal for more than a year to achieve scale in our practice when our teams did not have the bandwidth to quickly meet the growing demand,” said Joe Manfredonia, Regional Service Owner for Advanced Analytics at Johnson & Johnson. Manfredonia leads a team of data scientists that provides data science engineering as a service to J&J’s North American businesses across all sectors. “Toptal was able to quickly provide top quality data science talent that blended seamlessly into our teams.”

Toptal has seen a 145% increase in demand for artificial intelligence and data science talent over the past two years. To date, Toptal professionals have previously worked on a variety of projects for some of the world’s largest organizations, including: computer vision for the European Space Agency; machine learning for Intel; sound-based vehicle recognition and classification for GE; and biomechanics data mining for Nike Sports Research Lab, to name just a few.

This launch builds on Toptal’s recent success with similar talent specializations in the EdTech and Blockchain spaces. Artificial intelligence and data science – fields that are fast-growing and talent-scarce – are natural next steps in Toptal’s mission to connect organizations worldwide with top talent. Toptal’s new specializations will immediately and substantively alleviate the constraints of the AI and data science talent scarcity by matching businesses with high-quality on-demand talent from underutilized segments of the talent market. As AI and data science disruption accelerate, Toptal’s clients will be uniquely positioned to quickly and painlessly adapt and scale, keeping them ahead of the competition.

“Everyone is talking about the lack of machine learning engineers, AI specialists, and data scientists,” commented Lovro Iliassich, a machine learning engineer at Toptal. Iliassich has a Computer Science PhD, with research focused on data mining and machine learning. He also worked as an engineer at Amazon. “I hope that Toptal will be the resource that companies turn to if they need an AI or data science specialist. There’s no other place where you can be sure you are going to get high-quality freelance engineers.”