Never meet your heros - Project Manager Upwork Employee Review

1.0
Jun 14, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Unlimited time off (if they actually would let you use it), benefits

Cons

If you do not make your career your entire life and bend over backwards for all other departments then you will be the black sheep. You're told to stay in your swim lane and do your own work and to say no but you'll be reprimanded for actually following through. They said make mistakes its what we do here! But really they mean if you step out of line the tiniest bit it's on your record. Working with the account managers is a nightmare. I have never met a bigger bunch of toddlers who will use anyone and everyone else and the slightest mistakes to whine to their bosses. They blame everyone else for account failures, watch out they'll throw you under the bus. There's a few good ones in there but it doesn't even out having to deal with the others. Not to mention their managers care more about how they look than supporting people. It's a corporate game of tattle tail in the end. This company only knows how to manage easy people who martyr themselves and say yes to everything. They think with a couple inclusive slack channels they're doing something big. The company wide meetings are full of fancy jargon but time and time again everyone asks what are we really doing? Never have I ever been so let down by joining a company I thought was well put together. I'm not surprised that every week several people left, yes it is a trend that does not stop.

Explore other reviews about Upwork

5.0
Feb 25, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people, very approachable, interesting problems

Cons

A lot of short term thinking and near future optimization

1.0
Nov 7, 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It's remote, and most ICs are talented and kind.

Cons

Oh my, there are so many clowns at this company—nearly all of them in leadership. Mostly executive cronies from dinosaur companies like CareerBuilder and Yahoo, who are out of touch with the tech industry at large. This hysterical leadership shifts strategy every 3 months or so, resulting in whiplash for their poor staff as well as frequent layoffs and reorgs. In my time at this company, I’ve seen nearly every -ism you can imagine, frequently and repeatedly: racism, cronyism, sexism, and nepotism. The business model exploits freelancers, essentially offshoring work for clients (cheap global labor) while the company takes a hefty share via predatory fees, which are the majority of record company profits. Unfortunately, AI will cannibalize many freelancer jobs on the platform. Although the company is delusional in its own “native AI” progress—their models are unusable slop despite huge investments—other companies will likely provide useful tech in the near future, particularly agentic AI. I could go on, but the bottom line is that this is a grossly unethical company you should avoid if you can. I’ll also add that many of the positive reviews here are from USERS of Upwork, not EMPLOYEES. This results in a falsely positive, rosy view of a toxic company. I wish Glassdoor had a filter that could address this for people considering employment at Upwork. Their rating is likely closer to a 2.7 if those irrelevant reviews could be excluded from the data set.

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