Corporate Greed - Anonymous employee Upwork Employee Review

1.0
Jun 12, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The benefits offered at Upwork were great. Unlimited PTO, 401k with Match, Parental Leave Policy, etc.

Cons

When you first join the organization- they rally around you and sell you on the plan, the mission. Slowly over time you start to realize that the plan doesn't exist- every week you are pivoting a different direction, have different goals, difference focus points. When you question the changes- you are seen as someone who resists change, or someone who just doesn't understand a "fast-moving, corporate environment". You are told for months that layoffs aren't coming, that everyone should feel safe and secure in their roles. Then....boom. 137 corporate employees all let go, and what wasn't shared was many of our own freelancers were also part of the layoff. Severance agreements go out. People sign them. Then days later, they send out an addendum- stating an error was made and that the offered severance will be significantly less. Those who refused to sign received calls from HR, they said the amount would total to be the same, and we would receive our payments quicker and with less tax. ALL LIES! When I asked for that to be sent in writing, not surprising, they wouldn't send it. The final day for our severance to be paid out- they send us the wrong amounts. Emails go to HR with no response and then by end of day we receive wire transfers with the additional owed sum. I just never imagined this would be my experience with this company. The second we were let go, we were not treated with respect and dignity. We were treated like a nuisance. I'm so disappointed in this organization- we all deserved so much better.

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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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