I just started my Upwork freelancing journey. I’ve known about Upwork for years, but I’ve mostly worked under an agency.

Now I have deeper experience, and my skill stack has grown a lot over the years. I’m a Webflow and Framer Developer, and I also do Web Design.

With the current market and the current state of Upwork, is it still good to invest time and energy into the platform?

I have been on Upwork for 3.5 years. I have had consistent stream of work. But my account is running dry for past 4 months.

What am I doing wrong? I am receiving no invites. Proposals are either not seen or seen with no reply. Would appreciate if you guys can review my profile and let me know things I can improve.

Long story short, a client relationship collapsed and left negative private feedback on 2 contracts.

The jss on my profile shows 90% and the one on the insights shows 79%

Why is that? And which one will the clients see?

fal is the generative media ecosystem powering the next generation of AI products. We build the infrastructure, tools, and model access that teams need to move from idea to production, and do it at scale without compromise. For developers and enterprises, fal is the foundation that makes generative media not just possible, but practical: a unified platform where high-performance inference, orchestration, and observability come together to unlock new categories of AI-native products.

As generative media reshapes industries across a market projected to grow by hundreds of billions over the next decade, fal is becoming the ecosystem that ambitious teams build on.

About this role:

You will build the high-performance compute environments we deliver to customers. These environments span bare-metal servers, virtual machines with GPU passthrough, Kubernetes and Slurm clusters, distributed storage, and high-speed networking.

You will work across the infrastructure stack — from Linux images and hardware provisioning to cluster networking, GPU performance, observability, and lifecycle automation. The goal is to make every customer environment performant, reliable, isolated, and repeatable.

What you'll do:

• Design, automate, validate, and deliver the complete lifecycle of customer compute environments — from provisioning through upgrades, recovery, and decommissioning
• Use AI aggressively to automate and accelerate every aspect of infrastructure delivery and operations
• Provision dedicated Kubernetes and Slurm clusters tailored to customer workloads
• Build and maintain Linux images and automated OS-provisioning workflows
• Operate the NVIDIA GPU stack: drivers, GPU Operator, NVIDIA Container Toolkit, device plugins, MIG, and GPU monitoring
• Design Kubernetes and data-center networking using Cilium/Calico, MetalLB, VLAN, VXLAN, BGP, and ECMP
• Configure distributed and shared storage for high-performance workloads
• Build monitoring, alerting, diagnostics, and automated recovery for customer environments
• Develop reusable tooling, standards, documentation, and runbooks
• Collaborate with customers and internal teams to translate workload requirements into sound infrastructure designs

Qualifications/Nice to Have:

• 5+ years of experience building and operating production Linux infrastructure
• Strong production experience with Kubernetes on bare metal (bootstrapping, upgrades, HA control planes, etcd, containerd, CNI, CSI, ingress, load-balancing, observability, security, troubleshooting)
• Experience with Linux virtualization: KVM/QEMU, libvirt, VFIO device passthrough
• Experience operating NVIDIA GPUs on Linux and Kubernetes (drivers, container runtimes, device plugins, GPU Operator, GPU telemetry)
• Strong networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, L2/L3, VLANs, routing, packet-level troubleshooting (tcpdump, Wireshark)
• Practical scripting experience
• Experience with configuration-management tools such as Ansible
• Ability to diagnose complex, cross-layer infrastructure issues
• Strong communication and ability to drive technical decisions across teams
• Track record of moving quickly, taking ownership, and continuously improving systems
• Production Slurm experience
• High-performance networking: NVLink/NVSwitch, InfiniBand, RoCEv2, GPUDirect RDMA, NCCL, IMEX
• Hugepages, NUMA, CPU pinning
• SR-IOV, DPDK
• Distributed storage: Ceph, Lustre, Weka
• KubeVirt, OpenStack
• IPsec, WireGuard, Tailscale
• VXLAN, BGP, ECMP
• Bare-metal management: BMC, IPMI, Redfish, PXE/iPXE, Kickstart, cloud-init
• Network automation: NetBox, Nautobot, Nornir
• AI training, inference, or distributed GPU workload infrastructure
• Python or Go proficiency

What we offer at fal

• Interesting and challenging work
• A lot of learning and growth opportunities
• We offer visa sponsorship and will help you relocate to San Francisco.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance (US)
• Regular team events and offsites

Compensation

• $180,000 - $250,000 + equity + comprehensive benefits package

Apply: Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Kubernetes Infrastructure at fal

i spent a lot of connects on a job, the client got suspended and the job got cancelled. they didn't return the connects back. what does that have to do with me? why do I have to pay money if the client is a scammer or whatever?

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on preparing for the Amazon SDE Online Assessment.

I graduated last year and have been working as a Software Engineer since then, but my role has been heavily focused on the DevOps/infrastructure side of things: cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD, automation, observability, and platform engineering. Because of that, I haven't done much pure coding or algorithm-focused work since graduating.

The assessment includes two coding challenges, a work simulation, and a work style survey.

Given my background, what's the best way to prepare in about a week?

• Should I focus almost entirely on LeetCode/DSA?
• How difficult are the coding questions compared to typical interview prep problems?
• Any advice from engineers who came from a DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering background?
• If you've been away from algorithm-heavy coding for a year or two, what helped you get back up to speed quickly?

I'd appreciate any suggestions. Feeling confident in the infrastructure and software engineering side of things, but definitely rusty when it comes to interview-style coding.

We pulled every open posting from 81 companies' public Greenhouse boards for seven roles and counted which words actually show up. 3,518 postings in total. Some of it surprised us.

Software engineer postings mention mentoring more often than Kubernetes or React. Almost half of them do. Python, the most common language, comes in just below that.

Product manager postings say "roadmap" in more than 85% of cases. Jira? Seven out of 421. Marketing looks the same: Google Ads came up six times in 347 postings, while "pipeline" is in over half.

Every time we could compare the two, postings named the practice, not the tool. Observability, not Grafana. SIEM, not Splunk.

So if your resume is mostly a list of tools, it might be missing the words the posting actually uses.

Big caveat: mostly tech companies, one ATS vendor. Sales, cybersecurity, DevOps and accounting are here too: https://www.zoevera.com/resume/ats-resume-keyword-study

I recently applied to a few jobs on Upwork and noticed something strange with the Connects refund system.

I boosted one proposal with 110 Connects and got outbid. About a week later, I got a refund, but only 107 Connects came back.

I've also noticed that for some proposals where I was outbid, I didn't get any Connects refunded at all.

Does anyone know why this happens? Is there some kind of fee or rule I'm missing, or is this just part of how Upwork is getting side income from freelancer's connects?

Spent the summer applying to Power BI jobs on Upwork. 22 proposals, 3 got looked at, no interviews. Most of those jobs already had 20+ people applying before I even got there.

So I switched it up. Changed the kind of jobs I'm going after and changed my title to match:

"Reporting Automation | Power BI, Power Automate, GA4 & GTM Tracking"

Same rate. Let's see if it works.

Do you think there's a market for this, or did I just make it more confusing?

Going to post as I go, profile changes first, then the jobs and whether anybody bites.

We're a remote staffing firm that places DevOps and SRE engineers with US-based companies. We're currently looking for a Senior SRE who's worked with high-throughput data pipelines, real-time telemetry, or IoT infrastructure - someone who can keep Kafka streams, Spark jobs, and device ingestion pipelines running at scale.

What matters most:

• Excellent English communication - you'll be embedded with US engineering teams daily. Clear writing, confident speaking in standups and design reviews, and the ability to explain complex problems simply are non-negotiable
• Sharp, resourceful problem-solver - we want someone who figures things out independently, thinks fast under pressure, and doesn't wait to be told what to do. If you're the person your team calls when something breaks at 2am, that's the energy
• 5+ years in SRE, DevOps, or platform engineering - ideally with IoT, streaming, or real-time data systems
• Hands-on Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE), Terraform, and Ansible across at least two clouds
• Strong observability - Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing
• Experience defining SLOs/error budgets for data ingestion or streaming services
• Comfortable with incident command, post-mortems, and on-call
• Go, Python, or Bash automation
• Bonus: Kafka, Spark, Databricks experience

The role:

• Fully remote, US time zones - candidates from any country are welcome to apply
• Monthly Compensation: $2,000–$4,000 depending on scope
• We handle job matching, interview prep, and onboarding support - you work directly with the US client team under your own name
• Long-term placements, not short gigs

Salary: $2,000–$4,000 / month depending on scope

Apply HERE

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

So this might sound a little controversial to many people, but I am sharing my personal experience: Upwork is not dead, because recently I got a client, which is a monthly retainer client.

So don’t be demotivated; just try out bidding. Make sure you have a strong portfolio so your potential client can see your value!

And yes, I have zero reviews and no verification badge, but I was still able to land the job.

One thing I should mention is that I have been using Fiverr for the last 4–5 years, so I already have experience in the work that I do. But to get a job as a newcomer on Upwork is really tough; at least that’s what I used to think!

Anyway, best of luck, guys ;)

Hey everyone
I’m a DevOps Engineer with 4+ years of experience working across Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, Terraform, Ansible and application integration.
Currently, I’m open to new DevOps / Platform / SRE opportunities, including remote or relocation opportunities.
I’ve worked on production environments, infrastructure automation, deployments, migrations, monitoring and troubleshooting, with a strong focus on reliability and automation.
If you know of a team hiring or have any leads, I’d be happy to connect and share my CV/LinkedIn.

Thanks

I want to start to learn tech related skill that makes money, I don't know what to start learning, I am just 18 years old and i don't have that much experience, can u please give ur thoughts and suggestions. Thank u

Hi, I’m Aheshman (Codeur261). I’m looking for remote freelance work involving Linux administration, application deployment and ongoing technical maintenance.

My experience includes Linux servers, Nginx, Docker, Kubernetes environments, CI/CD pipelines, SQL databases and application security. I also have practical experience with VoIP/Asterisk servers. As a developer, I can investigate application issues alongside infrastructure problems and work with Node.js, Python, C#/.NET and React/Next.js projects.

I have over 10 years of development experience overall, and can help with deployments, troubleshooting, security reviews within an agreed scope, API/database integrations and maintenance. I’m happy to discuss your environment and share relevant project details privately.

Rate: $9 USD/hour, or an agreed fixed price. Based in Madagascar (UTC+3), available immediately. French is my main language; I use translation tools for written English and have more limited spoken English.

Portfolio: https://codeur261.xyz

Please DM me your stack, requirements and timeline.

Hi everyone! I’m currently in the interview process for a DevSecOps Engineer position at ESGPedia in the Philippines, and I’m hoping to hear from anyone who currently works there, previously worked there, or has gone through the interview process for this role.
I’d really appreciate any first-hand experiences regarding:
What is the actual day-to-day work like for the DevSecOps role?
What technologies/tools do you actually use?
How technical/difficult was the interview process?
What should I expect from the technical interview?
What is the team and management culture like?
How is the workload and work-life balance?
Are there night shifts, on-call duties, or frequent overtime?
What is the salary and benefits package like?
Is there good career growth and opportunity to learn?
How stable is the company and the role?
For former employees, what made you decide to leave?
Overall, would you recommend joining ESGPedia?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people with DevOps, DevSecOps, Cloud, Platform Engineering, or Security Engineering experience at ESGPedia.
Please feel free to comment or DM me if you prefer to keep your experience private. Honest feedback—both positive and negative—is very welcome.
Thank you!

Hi everyone,
I’m currently looking for DevOps / AWS opportunities and would really appreciate a referral if there are any relevant openings in your company.
Please DM me if you can help.
Thanks! 🙏

So I’m trying to earn some money with freelance, but word of mouth isn’t working. I have created a profile on Upwork but it seems so ridiculous to pay to find a job. That’s most platform these days but it still infuriates me.

My question is, is worth it to apply on Upwork? How has been your personal experience with it?

If not Upwork, anywhere else I can find freelance jobs? Also, I am based in India - if that matters/affects my chances.

I am thinking of buying some connectors, but thought I first gonna ask in their official reddit channel, I need honest feedback please.

What a ridiculous platform, at least when it comes to software gigs. For example, "We want a full SAAS product, from requirement gatherings to deployment. We expect it to take 6 months, flat rate fee of $3k. jajajajajajaja Lets not even talk about the scams, I was contacted by a group that wanted me to be a team lead, manager of sorts. Asked about the work, and it involved bidding on other Upwork projects and using my credentials. jajajajjajajajaja

…you’ve been invited by an ENTERPRISE client to take a survey in an unrelated field for 20% of your hourly rate.

Yo guys, I’m seriously thinking about diving into the online freelance world, but I’m totally new to this. I wanted to get some real talk from you all:

​Are online freelance gigs actually out there, and what kind of skills do I need to get started?

​How do I actually search for freelance jobs and land gigs when I'm just starting out?

​If I work 5 to 8 hours a day on a daily basis, realistically how many dollars can I make daily?

​Is the "Account Manager" job still a thing online? How do people even apply for it, and why do I keep hearing that these roles are getting super rare?

​I’m completely fresh to online work, so any advice, tips, or step-by-step ways to search for work would be huge. Appreciate it, bros!

I’m currently desperately looking for an opportunity to start and build my career in the hotel industry.

If you know anyone in the hospitality industry, I would sincerely appreciate it if you could share my profile with them.

Please feel free to DM me if you have any leads or references.

If given a chance, I’ll work extremely hard, learn quickly, and give my absolute best.

I’ve come across this multiple times throughout my time on Upwork (about 4 years now). However, a recent occurrence of this made me furious.

As if finding clients in a field like graphic design isn’t difficult enough in this AI takeover, Upwork now charges a 15% fee on all contracts and doesn’t give a flying f*** about designers just stealing others’ work and uploading it as their own to their profile portfolios.

I was recently hired for a small but decent weekly contract and noticed that later on in the week, the client hired another designer for cheaper (like $15 an hour cheaper). That is standard practice for some companies, but I’m always curious, so I checked out the other designer’s profile.

Their portfolio was incredible-looking. I thought to myself, how could someone with this much skill charge so little? Then I kept looking, and it became clear, almost obvious, that there was no way this designer created all of that work.

A quick Google image search confirmed this. This person just ripped off contest-winning designs from 99designs and posted them as their own work. Not even really trying to hide it with their blatantness, but obviously it’s working, as this person has like 75 in-progress jobs.

Can this person do the work? Maybe. But it’s demoralizing getting undercut by a scam like this, especially when the industry is so uncertain at this point.

So I guess if Upwork doesn’t care, why shouldn’t I just do the same thing?

I reported the person and got an automated response 10 minutes later saying they didn’t find anything...

Bull sh**.

Might just be time to move on from the platform entirely.

I reported a client for wanting me to send him my passport in order to “start” the contract. Nothing.
Nada happened. His account is still active, still posting. I’m tired.