Editor in Chief

Overview

As Toptal’s Editor in Chief, you will be responsible for defining excellence across all Toptal publications including the Toptal Engineering Blog, Toptal Design Blog, and future business-oriented and thought leadership publications on the Toptal site. You will be defining and maintaining editorial quality standards across all publications, ensuring that every single article published is A+ and something of which we are extremely proud. You will work closely with teams across Toptal and the editors for each publication to create and execute the strategic and creative direction of all Toptal publications. You will also work to build new publications from the ground up and scale them.

This role is a near-unlimited creative license to create thought-leading studies for Toptal’s 160,000+ subscribers on subjects that you find compelling across tech, software engineering, design, entrepreneurship, business, and more.

This is a remote position that can be done from anywhere.

Responsibilities:

• Define what content excellence means at Toptal and ensure that every single article published on Toptal.com meets this quality bar.
• Ensure that every single article published has an overwhelmingly compelling reason it needs to be published, read, and understood by its target audience.
• Work with editors across each publication on the “packaging” (introduction, conclusion, organization, visuals, etc.) of every article as needed until it meets the A+ quality bar.
• Work with the lead editors of each Toptal publication to build, refine, and scale the editorial processes necessary to support the conception and execution of a consistent pipeline of high-quality studies across the domains of software engineering, design, business, and more.
• Direct the strategic and creative direction of all Toptal publications, with guidance from the lead editors for each publication.
• Stay up-to-date with relevant news and rising trends in software engineering, design, entrepreneurship, business, etc., and incorporate these events into the creative direction of Toptal publications in a timely and strategic manner.
• Work with a team of designers and illustrators to define visual communication standards and ensure all visuals reflect clear, concise thinking and convey significant value to the reader.
• Analyze the performance of historic and newly published articles across key metrics and use the insights to guide future creative direction.
• Take ownership of growing Toptal’s readership, targeting all published pieces to an audience of smart, educated, and driven readers.
• Provide thought leadership, strategic insight, and clear communication (written and verbal) to the team on strategy.
• Take smart risks and champion new ideas.

Requirements:

• 2+ years of experience writing as an individual contributor in an academic or research setting.
• A background as a writer or editor at a top publication is preferred. Examples include First Round Review, The Wall Street Journal, or The New Yorker.
• A background or interest in psychology or linguistics is a plus.
• Experience with software engineering, design, startups, or the tech industry is preferred.
• You must have strong experience with thesis-centered writing and written analysis.
• You must be exceptionally creative, with a strong knack for creating clever, compelling material for an intelligent audience.
• You must be highly motivated by the prospect of building new publications from scratch and scaling them.
• You must have an outstanding eye for quality and an absolute unwillingness to compromise on your standards for an A+ article.
• Ability to clearly understand and communicate how subpar work should be improved.
• Exceptional clarity of thought in communication and analysis.
• You must be a relentless, creative problem solver.
• You must have outstanding written and verbal communications skills, as well as perfect grammar and command of the English language.
• You must be open to receiving feedback and constructive criticism.
• You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.