When it comes to the necessity of hiring freelance software developers, Upwork is the first option that comes to mind. While Upwork stands out with its global coverage and the most diverse talent pool that can be accessed online, there are some other hiring platforms that focus on sourcing exceptional tech talent.
Turing is considered to be one of them, so in this article, we suggest taking a deeper look at this platform, discovering the feedback of Turing’s users, and comparing Turing alternative options.
What is Turing
So, let’s take a deeper look at Turing, getting started with how the business defines itself. Turing is a digital platform to hire top developers remotely. In contrast to popular opinion, Turing isn’t a freelance network. Instead, it is a “data-driven job platform”, as creators describe it. Turing developers, in turn, focus on long-lasting relations with customers and prioritize full-time job opportunities.
The business idea behind Turing is to connect the “Silicon Valley-caliber” developers with global customers. Standing for the innovative hiring opportunities, Turing uses an AI-powered system to match the developers with perfect-fit jobs based on their skills and career goals.
As for talent quality assurance, Turing has a multiple-step vetting process to get a full picture of the candidate’s competencies. Turing also states that only 1% of the global development pool can cope with their technical tasks and succeed during the interview.
What makes Turing popular?
Below are the main advantages the business owners can get when using Turing for talent sourcing.
- Source talent globally from a 1,5 million pool. For comparison, there are 26,2 million developers in the world. So, the claimed global talent pool hardly reaches even 10% of its share.
- Get started in several days. Turing claims you can get started with your project development in 3-5 days after leaving an application on their website. We had an opportunity to test how it works and will share our experience later as well.
- Choose from 15+ job titles and 100+ technologies. As for this point, the coverage of jobs and technologies is great. In addition to the most popular ones, you can also choose a specific technology, plus hire other tech specialists, for example, designers, marketers, Business Analysts, and others.
- Vets candidates with AI solutions and real HR managers. Turing claims to have a 5-hours-long vetting process that consists of a technical task, personality testing, communication skill assessment, previous experience review, and coding challenge. To make the vetting process fair and multi-sided, Turing uses both AI software and employs professional HR managers.
- Use project management software inside of the platform. Turing claims to help with product management too. The platform has the WorkSpace solution for automatic time tracking, plus a Virtual Machine for code and data protection.
- Encourages long-term partnership with the developers. Turning focuses on developing long-lasting relations with the customers and the developers, and both parties are most frequently satisfied. The developers appreciate the opportunity to work remotely with no need to look for the customers on their own, while the customers appreciate the speed and choice options.
Turing’s possible drawbacks
So, the idea to hire remote engineers on Turing may sound attractive for companies that don’t have a lot of personal experience in remote hiring. However, does everything work as seamlessly as Turing promises?
We researched developers’ Turing reviews and got in touch with Turing directly to find out what you can expect from this platform.
Your request might not be satisfied immediately
As a part of our review, we decided to send a quick and simple request, asking Turing to connect us with several React Native developers.
Quick facts about React Native! This is one of the most popular and easy to handle cross-platform development technologies. There are 700,000 React Native developers in the world. |
Here is what the customer’s application process looks like – just two simple steps.
You have to specify the technology you want to build a web or mobile app with and share some information about your business. Next, the Turing algorithm is expected to match you with the perfect-fit developers.
Given the popularity and affordability of React Native, the chances of hiring React Native developers should be quite high. However, here is the response we got from Turing – they were unable to handle the request, but promised to come back to us once they find a good fit. So, sadly, we couldn’t hire tech talent with their help this time.
Turing’s vetting process might be that balanced
Turing claims to have a balanced and fair vetting process. That’s why the Turing machine algorithm isn’t the only tool used, and real HR managers also take part in the process. While testing and interviewing take 5 hours, for some job positions, there is also a take-home assignment.
For example, in the review below the developer claims that a take-home task implies building a full-fledged mobile application that can be easily sold.
Not all software engineers are happy with Turing
While Turing promises fair and competitive salaries for all the developers that collaborate with them, according to one of the reviews, the company promises top rates but strives to lower them afterward.
Given the fact that Turing doesn’t want to spoil its reputation, this negative comment might have been already resolved, but since the review provided is still in open access, we can only play a guessing game at this point.
So, in the next stage, we decided to discover what the developers already working with Turing share about their experience.
But the majority of developers find Turing a good company
Most of the reviews were positive, while the developers highly appreciated the opportunity to work from home, avoid traffic jams, and better plan their working days. A lot of developers also agree that Turing is a good company for personal growth.
However, among all the positive reviews, there was one that caught our attention. It stated that Turing’s employees have no respect for candidates and even use mental harassment to make the developers more anxious and fail the test, as the result. However, such a critical review is almost the only negative one we found on the web so there is a reason to believe that there was a huge misunderstanding between the developer and HR, and now the issue is successfully resolved.
So, let’s sum up the things we have discovered about Turing:
No one is perfect, and satisfying everyone is also impossible. Given the fact that Turing is an international company with 800 employees and 1,5 million developers across the globe, negative reviews can be a consequence of a language barrier, misunderstanding, and unrealistic expectations. |
The latter, in turn, can never be good for a project’s success, so, let’s consider a more transparent and reliable alternative to hire top remote talent.
Bridge is a customer-centric talent sourcing vendor with clear vetting, communication, collaboration, and delivery practices. Get in touch with us now for global talent sourcing services!
Alternative to Turing for tech talent hiring – choose from 3 top tactics
Below are practice-proven approaches for hiring a well-vetted remote development team, avoiding hiring delays, risks and pitfalls.
Use sourcing-as-a-service
Turing may be an option for the companies that lack hiring experience and would want to have a partner that will help them deal with their recruitment campaign. But some companies would just want to vet and interview candidates on their own to be completely sure of their hiring choices. For that reason, there’s a good strategy to meet this need.
Those projects are welcome to consider sourcing-as-a-service, which stands for the opportunity to quickly get a list of pre-selected candidates, chosen in accordance with your job requisition. Then, you can proceed with interviewing the developers instantly or just have the list of candidates in your pocket to run the interviews at the right moment.
Augment your in-house team
Turing can also hardly be an option for the projects that need to strengthen their in-house team since it doesn’t provide any collaboration opportunities in this case. Even if you manage to somehow align Turing developers with your in-house ones, their communication might become challenging.
Consider team staffing with Bridge instead. The candidates we can suggest have hands-on experience in working as augmented team members, so onboarding them will be easier.
Gather an IT team from scratch
IT recruitment is another winning tactic to consider. This is a good approach for the businesses which need a tech team for the long-term project but would like to double-vet team members and keep their development process under control.
We, at Bridge, would be happy to source a full-fledged tech team for your project so that you can cut hiring expenses and speed up the project start.
Depending on the location you choose, our local recruiters will quickly gather the best-in-class development team, meeting your project’s requirements and stakeholders’ expectations.
What do you get when choosing Bridge as your service provider?
Below are some more things that make Bridge a better option compared to Turing.
- Choose a destination with a specific talent pool. While Turing claims to hire globally, having no idea of the destination you get the talent from isn’t the best approach to your software development. The matter is that each of the software development outsourcing countries has a specific talent pool, English proficiency index, level of higher education, and time zone. Aligning these specifics with your project requirements is half the success, and that’s why Bridge stands for the opportunity to choose a country to hire tech talent.
- Discover how much each developer will cost you per month exactly. Turing deals with payrolls on its own, but given the way the company cheats on the developers, its customers face the risk of being cheated and overcharged as well. In contrast, with Bridge you always know how much each developer costs per month. We also take care of payroll in the case of IT recruitment and team augmentation.
- Pay a fixed fee for hiring help. We stand for transparent collaboration. That’s why you are paying a hiring fee per developer you hire within IT recruitment and team augmentation frameworks and then collaborate with your developers in the way you consider right for your project.
- Manage the hiring process via our dedicated platform. You are also welcome to take advantage of our dedicated platform for remote hiring. With its help, you can review candidates, schedule interviews, and keep track of payrolls after making the best hiring choices.
Feel like partnering with Bridge is a value-driving opportunity for your hiring strategy and project growth? Schedule a free call with our top experts right now!
Conclusion
So, despite being a pretty popular option to hire remote talent, Turing also comes with its pros and cons. The advantages of the platform cover good talent reach and job coverage, the opportunity to use in-built collaboration tools, and hiring a pre-vetted developer suggested with the help of AI. As for the possible drawbacks of Turing, some of the negative experiences shared by Turing developers tend to raise certain doubts.
That’s why you should always be careful when choosing a hiring service provider. Bridge would be happy to support you along the hiring path, standing for honest communication and transparent collaboration.