Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork • Hacker News Board

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#61

Post by danj » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

I’ve probably hired about $150,000 of contracts through up work and never once have we required the monitoring app to be used. However, we have a bit of a different approach, we will “pay” you through upwork for the first month, but if we are satisfied with your work after a month we pay you directly through PayPal or wire transfer and then we cancel the contract on upwork. Out of all of the contractors we have hired (20-30) I can only think of one who wanted complete payment through upwork.

I know how bad upwork is and when we hired we genuinely always set out to get the contractors we worked with off using it so they can keep more money.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#62

Post by hihi123 » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

giggles_giggles wrote: post #42

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

I spent the whole time reading the article thinking "so you got scammed by people looking to find a way to hide prejudice behind ML? What a surprise..." Maybe the lesson here is that people doing unethical things will take the opportunity to do more unethical things, like not pay you, and it may well be in your self interest to apply your ethics when choosing a job? Upwork doesn't look great here, but seems like it's…

No, that's not the lesson. Upwork the platform scammed him, not the 'unethical' clients. The clients were looking to settle the bill.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#63

Post by bitwize » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

This is standard industry practice. I remember hearing about one of Upwork's constituent companies, oDesk, doing the same thing 13 years ago. You had to run their time logger program, which would periodically screenshot your desktop and take a webcam photo to ensure you were working.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#64

Post by vkou » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

jammygit wrote: post #56

caiocaiocaio wrote: post #21

I freelanced on Upwork for a bit. It was all the worst aspects of having an abusive boss (the platform itself), and all of the worst aspects of freelancing (unpredictability, getting ripped off by shifty clients). "Creepiest shit ever" is a pretty accurate description of Upwork. If Upwork's attitudes and policies were described to me in the 90s, I would have said it was lame, unrealistic science fiction with an over-…

Any tips for freelancers who are recent engineering grads? I have some portfolio items, but I still can’t claim more than 1 year experience

Spend a year working for a consulting company, to learn the ropes. If I were a business looking to have a freelancer build something for me, 'a fresh grad, with less than a year work experience, who has never done this sort of thing before' is not who I'd hire.

I have 9 years experience, and if I were to to go into freelancing (The kind where you solve problems for businesses, as opposed to the kind where you're a 9-5 1099 contractor), the first thing I would do is to take a job at a consulting firm, and spend my time there learning. Figure out what works, and what really, really doesn't.

That job is probably going to suck, but you'll have a much better idea of what to do, what your customers really hate about working with big firms, and your resume will look much better, when you can put down "I did the thing I want you to hire me for, in a consulting firm, for 18 months, I know how this works, and I can do it better."

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#65

Post by j05huaNathaniel » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

What if this was the NBA? Are you telling me that race wouldn't be an indicator of work performance? Are you telling me that age wouldn't be an indicator of work performance? You're also assuming some malicious intent when you have zero context. Maybe stick to just talking about the topic at hand.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#66

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

rahimiali wrote: post #37

I'm surprised that the complaint is about getting paid, rather than pointing out that Upwork facilitated an illegal and immoral system to be built. You don't get to use "demographic information" like "race" or "age" or probably many of the columns the post mentions to make hiring decisions. For the sake of the jobs industry, the author should change their post to say this.

[deleted]

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#67

Post by 3131s » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #46

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

If you think it is not possible for race be related to job performance you must not have watched much NBA basketball.

The best athletes are extremely intelligent and driven people. The over-representation of black people in athletics is most definitely related to their under-representation in other fields.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#68

Post by rangeofmotion » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

caiocaiocaio wrote: post #21

I freelanced on Upwork for a bit. It was all the worst aspects of having an abusive boss (the platform itself), and all of the worst aspects of freelancing (unpredictability, getting ripped off by shifty clients). "Creepiest shit ever" is a pretty accurate description of Upwork. If Upwork's attitudes and policies were described to me in the 90s, I would have said it was lame, unrealistic science fiction with an over-…

It blows my mind that UpWork does so well as a platform. I have never had a good experience using it. And I don't know anyone who says good things about it.

I think there is a real market opportunity for a startup that can provide a way to connect businesses who need short-term or specific project work (i.e. they don't want employees) with freelancers who want to work in that mode while (and this is important) avoiding the creepiness and flaky nature of UpWork. Conversely, it would also need to avoid being too similar to having the middleman as an employer.

I probably know 50 people who would jump on a platform that hit this sweet spot in a heartbeat.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#69

Post by komali2 » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #46

pdkl95 wrote: post #28

> the dataset contained ... demographic attributes like race ... to predict actual work performance Regardless of the original intent, that's a request to launder a protected class into an opaque "work performance" metric. Also, while they are not on the unfortunately short list of protected classes, using demographics like age is probably going to create similar discrimination problems. If you want to know about job…

If you think it is not possible for race be related to job performance you must not have watched much NBA basketball.

You can't make effective prediction off this stereotype. It is useless.

There is nothing inherent in "being black" that leads to greater basketball performance. Also, define "black," good luck.

Being tall, maaaaaybe. But not perfectly so, and there's no useful correlation between tallness and race, considering that the NBA generally just selects for the most skilled basketball players.

Then you get into all the cultural influences that totally shoot any genetic arguments out of the sky, and really just makes trying to do any, uh, science, around genetics and the NBA pointless. In my experience (as a southerner) it's typically just a sort of dog whistle kind of psuedoscientific attempt to set the groundwork that race can be related to other things, such as likelihood to be a criminal, hence why I jump on this argument whenever I see it. Apologies if that wasn't your intent.

In short, "race" (good luck defining even one) is not related to job performance.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#70

Post by human20190310 » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

rahimiali wrote: post #37

I'm surprised that the complaint is about getting paid, rather than pointing out that Upwork facilitated an illegal and immoral system to be built. You don't get to use "demographic information" like "race" or "age" or probably many of the columns the post mentions to make hiring decisions. For the sake of the jobs industry, the author should change their post to say this.

Ethics aside, you'd think a company concerned about simply covering its ass would explicitly remove demographic information from the analysis, to avoid the possibility of it influencing the categorizations.