Turing vs LD Talent is an interesting topic in the developer hiring space. While Turing is famous for raising a ton of money from Silicon Valley VCs, LD Talent has taken a more grassroots approach. But what else sets Turing and LD Talent apart?
Basic Information
Turing and LD Talent focus on developers and some data scientists and designers.
Turing vets their developers for soft skills, algorithmic ability, and comparative skill level in specific subtopics of specific technologies. The process includes uploading a resume, work experience assessment, tech stack tests, a coding challenge, and an onboarding call. They pride themselves on vetting using both AI and humans. Also, they include a multifaceted assessment of project impact, engineering excellence, people skills, communication, and direction.
Additionally, they bucket developers into coders, leaders, and project architects. This depends on the ability to deal with deep technical issues like space-time complexity optimizations; holistic business issues like developing a full stack application that customers can use; and intergroup dynamics such as writing code that other people can comprehend, system design, integration of testing, DevOps, CI, etc., will determine their success.
LD Talent vets developers for their creativity, algorithmic ability, coding ability, responsiveness, and responsibility (i.e. they’ve done large projects).
Turing refunds you if you are not satisfied with the first 2 weeks of work.
LD Talent features a ~5 hour free trial (technically it’s $100 of free credit). Developers are paid but LD covers the cost of the first few hours.
Turing and LD Talent only accept developers who exhibit written and spoken English proficiency.
Turing does not invest in its developers’ education.
LD Talent financially incentivizes developers to engage in lifelong learning.
Turing and LD Talent both feature international and US-based freelancers, but both focus more on international.
Turing does not publicly advertise a full-time referral option. You can only hire workers as contractors through Turing, as far as we know. LD Talent does do full-time referrals. So, you can opt to hire a developer directly for a finder’s fee (1K – 2K) instead of hiring them on the platform.
Turing has an average international developer rate of ~$45-60/hr. It takes close to a 40% cut.
LD Talent has an average international developer rate of ~$20/hr with a minimum of $15/hr. It takes a 20% cut.
Turing pays its developers every 2 weeks.
LD Talent pays its developers 3-7 days after their client approves their work.
LD Talent presents an unlimited number of candidates to potential clients. Clients can search the platforms respective databases by skills, location, and years of experience.
Turing hand curates talent for clients and does not let clients search their entire database.
Developer Vetting
Turing.com does vetting. Their FAQ describes the following:
Before joining Turing.com, developers have to go through the Turing vetting process. Turing uses a combination of automated tests and an AI Matching Engine to match qualified engineers with remote jobs at leading U.S. companies. This unique skill based vetting process has been scientifically crafted to improve upon Silicon Valley vetting standards and find the top 1% software engineers in the world.
Turing.com
Turing’s AI Matching Engine evaluates the results of the MCQ tests and coding challenges to analyze developers’ skills, expertise and work experience. After that, it identifies the best jobs for each candidate based on their talent, availability, and location.
Turing’s vetting process consists of four steps. Once you complete these tests, the AI Matching Engine will help you finalize your profile, and then it will start presenting your profile to leading U.S. companies for the most suitable remote developer jobs.
1. Upload resume and setup profile 2. Work experience survey (MCQ test) 3. Coding challenge (Real-time coding test) 4. Tech stack tests (MCQ test)
LD Talent does vetting by:
- recruiting engineers whose alma maters are well-established universities around the country and world, or engineers who have strong presence on Github
- ensuring engineers have passed exams in computer science concepts, coding practicals, advanced algorithms (tests run on their submitted code)
- reviewing engineers’ projects in their specialty area
- having internal algorithms constantly monitor and rank engineers’ knowledge, performance, work session approval rate, ratings, productivity, responsiveness in slack, reliability, and other critical attributes
- using automated and manual validation on the resumé form to ensure that developers that claim a skill have used the skill in a specific experience
- doing video calls with all developers to ensure that they can communicate effectively in English with common idioms and proper grammar and the likes
Aside from the above differences, both platforms keep track of developers’ availability per week and earned hours.
How it Works
Turing.com has a How it Works video. Essentially you can go on the platform, sign up, state your skill needs, get introduced to relevant talent, hire them, and pay on the platform. They have a web based time tracking / logging system, daily standups, and timezone management.
LD Talent is similar, with a few specific differences. Namely, you:
- don’t have to create an account to filter their database of developers – you can search for candidates: http://ldtalent.org/client/select_engineers/
- get a 5 hour free trial so you can try candidates without putting down a credit card
- can let developers track time but still get budget control by approving or rejecting work sessions, through the system of slack based time tracking, which are integrated with git commits and don’t require you to review screenshots of a developer’s screen
- only pay for time if you’re satisfied with the work — you can just reject work sessions you’re not satisfied with — you don’t have to file a dispute and argue, like you have to do on Upwork
- if you like a developer you can pay the buyout fee of 1K (international) or 2K (US-based) and hire the developer directly outside the platform
Technical Speciality
Turing is a developer-focused platform, meaning it has developers who cover an array of different skills.
Similarly, LD Talent also has developers with diverse modern and in-demand skills. For instance, it features developers, designers, and data scientists who cover backend development in Django, Node, RoR, and Laravel, Frontend Development in React, Vue, Angular, HTML/CSS/JS, jQuery, Bootstrap, Native Android, Native iOS, React Native, and Unity, Blockchain, Tensorflow for AI, Machine Learning, NLP, Computer Vision, Deep Learning, Data Science, Web Scraping / Python Selenium Browser Automation, WordPress, Java, C++, CAD, Data Visualization, Matlab, SQL, Python, Javascript, Ruby, Docker Containers, and Chrome Extension Development, to name a few important ones.
Clients
Clients of Turing include some big names like Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi, Dell, and Disney. LD Talent has clients that include startups, large companies like Infosys and Baidu, and universities like Yale, Northwestern, Stanford, and University of Wisconsin.
Talent Network Culture
Particularly given the new normal, Turing has what we would call a future of work culture. Let’s compare it to LD Talent.
LD Talent has a culture of entrepreneurship, geeking out, HCI, ICT4D, Economic Development, and Digital Nomad Friendliness. Because of its’ intentional features, its critics say that it requires a good amount of involvement since you have to approve / reject the developer work sessions (unless you go on auto-approve mode). That being said, LD founders’ are on the LD slack available to help on notice, since the platform is not as large as Turing.
Budget Control
LD Talent offers budget control through slack based work sessions which are somewhere between Turing’s developer-friendly unchecked hourly time tracking and Upwork’s client-friendly milestone escrow system.
Here are the reviews of LD Talent and you can see reviews of Turing as well.
