Data scientists shouldn't use Upwork
Upwork is ruining it for gig economy &#x2F; freelancing &#x2F; outsourcing. They create a race to the bottom and prioritize the client over fairness. Fiverr isn&#x27;t much better.<p>It&#x27;s hard for any &quot;we focus on everything&quot; platform to get the specific needs of each vertical (customer + talent side) right. It&#x27;s why TaskRabbit (focus on everything) never reached the scale of Uber&#x2F;Lyft (press a button, get a ride).<p>I&#x27;m not deep in the Data Science world, but hopefully there&#x27;s a platform focused on vetting customers + freelancers and providing a platform for working together easily, fairly, transparently (without the creepiness). Platforms should also decide what kind of work is fine to outsource. Long-term&#x2F;strategic work the company has to live with for many years (i.e. a core prediction model or fundamental backend arch) shouldn&#x27;t be outsourced. People who will see the benefits of their work in 5+ years should be the ones working on stuff that&#x27;ll benefit the company in 5+ years.<p>I appreciate the mention of Turtle (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.turtle.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.turtle.dev&#x2F;</a>) in this thread already (I&#x27;m one of the founders).<p>For freelancers, Turtle:
- Makes sure customers are vetted (just as freelancers are).
- Pays for all hours billed (even if customers don&#x27;t pay). Freelancers are trusted to enter all hours manually. No creepy screenshots.
- Provides an easy-to-use platform for task management, chat, video, payments.<p>We&#x27;re specifically focused on React, React Native, iOS, and Android dev now. Front-end&#x2F;mobile is easier to compartmentalize. I&#x27;m not sure if that&#x27;s possible for many forms of data science.<p>Part-time work is an important part of our economy and will become more important as the world further globalizes (ex: &quot;Remote&quot; now being a hot topic) -- but the infrastructure is seriously lacking. UpWork is a sloppy solution attempt.<p>I encourage freelancers, customers, and platforms to be honest about what should and shouldn&#x27;t be outsourced, to make sure there&#x27;s quality on both sides (great freelancers and shit customers fail), and to make sure there&#x27;s an easy process to follow (great freelancers, customers, with shit process still fail).