As mentioned in other reviews, the sales organization is constantly changing. Midway through 2020, there was a reorg that effectively demoted 20ish employees into a position that was inferior to the one that they had been hired for. Leadership says "change is constant", however the frequency of change resembles a small, scrappy startup rather than a publicly traded company that has been around for over 10 years - there seems to be no cohesive, long-term strategy. Instead, the company appears to be trying things for a few months and if that doesn't work out, it's on to the next idea. I understand that companies need to be nimble, but the magnitude of the changes that occur at Upwork are unlike any other company I have worked for - entire teams, books, strategies get turned on their head or scrapped altogether. Each time there is a shift or change, employee morale gets affected, books change midway through the month, and people spend a few days in limbo without knowing what is going to happen the next week. For reps, how well you do almost always depends on what book of business you are given - some of the hardest working reps perform poorly because they get unlucky with certain accounts, and some reps hit their numbers without even trying, because their accounts start organically performing well. There is not always an ROI for effort someone puts in. There were layoffs last November (where they laid off some top performers and kept employees who had been at the company for less than a month) and the company has been bleeding employees since then. They have lost some of their best performing reps, and managers are quitting as well.
From a client's perspective, they have multiple new AEs or AMs working with them through the course of a year, which makes it challenging to establish any semblance of continuity when attempting to build client relationships.
All in all, it's slightly misrepresented to potential employees. A lot of the 4 and 5 star reviews on Glassdoor have been left by freelancers who don't work for Upwork corporate full time. Filter out those to get a more accurate sense of what it is like to work at Upwork. There is true market potential, so I hope the company gets it right eventually.
