Designer - Anonymous employee Upwork Employee Review

5.0
Jul 2, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I'm an onsite, full time employee and I love my job. My director is fantastic, and I work with a top-notch team of talented, caring, and committed designers. In fact, most everyone I've worked with cross-functionally has been exceedingly good at what they do and just as passionate about it. The company's positive mission and role in the future of work is a galvanizing force that attracts forward-thinking, talented individuals that work well together. As an individual, I find my work on the whole to be very engaging and satisfying. I appreciate that my team is both collaborative and self-reliant, invites discussion/hashing out of different viewpoints and that I'm given ample opportunity for new growth and the freedom to tackle new challenges or try new approaches. As a company, we've recently re-branded and you can feel the positive transformation throughout our product, workspace, and culture. It's an exciting time to be working at the company. Of course, there are things that could be improved and everything isn't awesome all the time. But, when a process isn't working or something breaks, anyone can speak up, be heard and help with the solution. I feel proud to be part of such a great team.

Cons

For my job, team and department, I have no real cons.

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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