Pros
They managed to recruit some amazing people to work for the company primarily because their recruiting team was extremely strong. Most people were very friendly and went above and beyond to reach company targets.
Cons
Leadership at Upwork is some of the worst I've experienced. This cascades down from the CEO. This company allows it's managers to discriminate against employees without consequences. They talk the talk, but do not walk the walk often preaching about how they care about equity and equality, but do very little to ensure it's actually happening. They are so focused on looking good to their investors that they step on the backs of their hard working employees to get there. There is very little accountability. The lack of accountability is what led to the most recent layoff of over 15% of the entire workforce. Most of the employees that were affected by the layoffs were put in that spot because they were aggressively working towards achieving the goals leadership had set for them. Unfortunately, leadership was not able to set goals that actually aligned with the business outcomes they were trying to achieve. They then did some very shady things to try and avoid paying employees what they were originally promised in the severance agreement. They had HR reach out to get people to sign new severance agreements under false pretenses.