Upwork Review – My experience with Upwork – and some tips for US clients

I’ll get right to it. It’s a great platform – but watch out for these issues

Upwork Review – The Messaging App  

To say that their messaging app is buggy is an understatement. I have had MULTIPLE contractors report that they never got messages I sent them. This is true across the board – whether your contractor is sitting in North America or somewhere across the globe.

Initially, this caused me a LOT of grief – it delayed deliverables – and I wasn’t sure of what progress was being made (Imagine sitting in waiting mode – assuming your latest messages had cleared up all the doubts the contractor may have had)…

The Solution

Always ask  for a written confirmation on the messaging app. Like – ‘Can you confirm if you have what you need?’ Or ‘Will you be providing this document in the next 24 hours?’..

That way, if they haven’t read (received ) your message, you will be able to decipher their non response.

Honestly, this is such a BIG issue (and has been – for the last 5 years), that I am surprised Upwork hasn’t cleared this up.

Upwork Review – The File Attachments Feature

Just like the messaging app cannot be relied upon, their file attachment function is equally buggy. I’ve gotten into situations where contractors have sworn to have attached the latest version of a file – and I only see an older (previously uploaded) version.

This is all very frustrating for both parties – and often, you end up having to exchange email addresses or ftp locations as an alternative way to get  files back and forth.

Upwork Tips – Other Tips for Clients  – Breakdown larger tasks

Try and always break down your SINGLE large task into  smaller tasks. Say you need a HUGE spreadsheet created. Instead of having the entire sheet as the deliverable, ask for the most important columns as part of the first deliverable. And so on. You get the idea.

What happens with distant contractors is the whole ‘boiling the ocean’ phenomenon. They try to do too much at once (no fault of theirs…). This is something that can easily be resolved with better communication.

Upwork Tips – Other Tips for Clients  – NEVER give out your website or app store or any other credentials

Sometimes, in order to save time, we just relay our login credentials to a developer / contractor. The thought process is that we can always change it down the road, once they are done.

I will relate a story that will make you revise this thought process.

I had a guy – in Bangladesh – working a on a wordpress site. Once done with his updates, he refused to ‘show me the proof’ until I released payment. I told him that upwork policy was to let the client review for a period of a week to ensure satisfaction. He was having none of it. I asked for time to think it over.

When I woke up the next morning, my wordpress site was down. At first, I reached out to the web host. They informed me that it was a user initiated takedown. Someone had literally DELETED the entire contents of the public_html folder.

What to do in such a situation?

Do NOT reach out to the contractor. At this point, that would be negotiating with a terrorist.

What I did was reach out to the web host to see if they had a backup (they did – from a week ago). That last week’s backup was good enough for my purposes. I restored the site – obviously changed all passwords – and deleted the upwork user altogether. I also saved the ftp access logs (the web host should have these) to present to upwork later.

Next, I launched an official complaint with Upwork. They reached out to the contractor – who immediately denied anything to do with the site takedown. When the ftp access logs were revealed to him, he simply disappeared (deactivated his upwork account).

Anyway, moral of the story, DO NOT  EVER give our any meaningful access credential. LEARN the ropes of how to apply updates to your own app / your website / whatever.

Summary

With internationally based contractors, time zone differences, linguistic differences – there’s enough challenges to begin with. Upwork does have some amazing talent – and is probably the only place to find the exact skills you might be looking for. However, the platform itself leaves a lot to be desired (I used them back in 2016 – and then again in 2021 – and it STILL has some of the same issues that it did back then). The messaging unreliability is a real sore thumb issue. I’ve lost a lot of hours just around that single upwork feature.

This post also provides some tips (especially for US based clients) to work more effectively with upwork contractors. All based on my personal experience.

How was your experience with Upwork?