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Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

racketracer.com

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Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#71

Post by komali2 »

krn wrote: post #59
jammygit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Any tips for freelancers who are recent engineering grads? If you have a relevant degree, why not to apply for a remote job position instead? That would help to build your CV, and allow to switch to contracting later on.

Stack overflow jobs board thing is the best place imo to find remote Dev positions. Harder for new grads.

Angel list might be a place to find remote AND newbie friendly jobs.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#72

Post by vlokshin »

fourstar wrote: post #60
vlokshin wrote: post #51

Upwork is ruining it for gig economy / freelancing / outsourcing. They create a race to the bottom and prioritize the client over fairness. Fiverr isn't much better. It's hard for any "we focus on everything" platform to get the specific needs of each vertical (customer + talent side) right. It's why TaskRabbit (focus on everything) never reached the scale of Uber/Lyft (press a button, get a ride). I'm not deep in th…

Aside from 3/4 of your post being a gigantic ad about your own platform (which if you ever reached the scale of Upwork, I guarantee you’d run into the same issues you mention), how is it really a race to the bottom? You give the price you’re willing to work for, and the buyer agrees to the terms. Just like any other marketplace. I guess Fiverr is a race to the bottom, but that’s because their name and original missio…

> Aside from 3/4 of your post being a gigantic ad about your own platform

I mention what I think is necessary for a platform in any vertical to work. We just happen to already be doing it for our vertical.

> how is it really a race to the bottom?

- Just about everyone has a 4.5+ star review, so the cheapest 4.5+ star review looks objectively better to a Co trying to cut costs. Just like any review system, it can be gamed.

- Customers get preferential treatment. That's not a fair two-sided marketplace -- that's a race to the bottom, for whoever keeps the customers happy, including the bad ones.

- Look at average salaries/hourly fees for different fields and look at UpWork. That should be the clearest "race to the bottom" evidence.

> Maybe the vetting process could be better, but Upwork is the best contract to hire marketplace for a variety of work, IMO.

They're the biggest. That's about it. Read OP's write-up, ask other freelancers, ask other customers. UpWork is a lame excuse for what part-time, remote work has the potential to become in the economy.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#73

Post by cannonedhamster »

sterkekoffie wrote: post #38
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 actually thought that line was a joke when I first read it. "We don't hire non-citizens, Hispanic people, or anyone over 30" sounds a lot worse than "we evaluate candidates according to an algorithm trained to predict work performance."

Before tech I did a stint in recruiting. We had a client demand only "white sounding" names. We ignored that and provided any qualified candidate. They complained because they mistook the recruiters name for an applicant. We fired that client the same week. It was a truly disgusting thing to be asked and I'm glad my company made the right call. Any future client that asked that was immediate grounds for client dismissal, i.e. didn't require management approval.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#74

Post by social_quotient »

danj wrote: post #61

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…

Might not want to post that here if you intend on keeping that account - https://www.upwork.com/legal#noncircumvention

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#75

Post by pkaye »

gumby wrote: post #44
ergothus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point! Isn't age a protected class though? At least in the US, discrimination over 40 is covered by the EEOC.

They are protected against certain kinds of discrimination, but no human discriminated against them. It was simply a dispassionate algorithm and an algorithm can't display malice! Grrr... or that's what they, and probably the courts, would say. The OP calling it "discrimination laundering" had it right.

I don't think you can use "no human discriminated against them" as a defense. It could still be constructive discrimination.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#76

Post by zzaacchh »

My company uses Upwork (as a services buyers) for hundreds of contracted hours per week, and have been for many years. We’ve never required any contractor to use screen recording for hourly work — that is optional — and have never heard of anyone using a webcam. We’ve also never disputed a single hour of work that a contractor has billed, nor have we heard any of the dozens of contractors we’ve hired mention this as an issue.

I think you might be extrapolating from a single bad data point (never a good idea, especially for a data scientist) and reaching an incorrect conclusion about the Upwork ecosystem.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#77

Post by vangelis »

rhema wrote: post #23

>Their rules state that you must have the Upwork Desktop App on you computer which installs some sort of video malware onto your laptop AND have your webcam visible and on at all times so that the customer success agent can audit that you looked like you were working through the webcam while staring at a screen. How is that not the creepiest shit ever? Compare this to the Upwork App's description https://support.upwo…

[flagged]

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#78

Post by Nextgrid »

zzaacchh wrote: post #76

My company uses Upwork (as a services buyers) for hundreds of contracted hours per week, and have been for many years. We’ve never required any contractor to use screen recording for hourly work — that is optional — and have never heard of anyone using a webcam. We’ve also never disputed a single hour of work that a contractor has billed, nor have we heard any of the dozens of contractors we’ve hired mention this as…

While I appreciate your perspective, I can imagine there’s a lot of people hiring that have zero idea how developers & data scientists work and think screen recording is a brilliant idea and thus insist on it.

I’ve seen a lot of really shit job postings on Upwork & similar freelancing platforms that confirm the person posting the job has no idea of what they’re doing.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#79

Post by data4lyfe »

zzaacchh wrote: post #76

My company uses Upwork (as a services buyers) for hundreds of contracted hours per week, and have been for many years. We’ve never required any contractor to use screen recording for hourly work — that is optional — and have never heard of anyone using a webcam. We’ve also never disputed a single hour of work that a contractor has billed, nor have we heard any of the dozens of contractors we’ve hired mention this as…

If Upwork will disqualify you for payment for not fulfilling a set of rules in a rather than look into the source of the dispute as a misunderstanding from a completion, I find that in bad faith and a terrible customer support experience.

Re: Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork

#80

Post by MuffinFlavored »

komali2 wrote: post #69
opwieurposiu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cultu…

Aren't blacks genetically predisposed to larger twitch muscles (faster reaction times, etc.)?
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