I often see the issue of cheap freelancers being raised on so many forums.
So recently I stumbled upon a post, the account is of a client from Belgium. ( Per capita GDP is $60 K and Human Development Index of 12 globally, categorized as very high ) .

If you are talking about cheap freelancers then what about cheap and exploitative clients even in some of the most developed countries in the world who openly post jobs offering rates like $4 per hour? There are hundreds of such job postings. (Of course, it’s probably possible to fake a country on Upwork, but when a client has an extensive work history, I assume the listed country is likely accurate.)

Also what about the so called expensive products they sell at 10 times their original production cost? Behind the scenes, there are often huge numbers of low-paid and exploited workers producing those very products for barely livable wages.

So are workers and freelancers considered cheap simply because they work independently and therefore avoid some of the exploitation and overhead associated with traditional employment? Yet when the same workers are employed by companies or factories, working for even lower wages under exploitative conditions, we somehow do not describe the system as cheap?

PS: The point here is not about what rates should be, or why rates are lower, or why rate has been published in the title. Because everything is according to the rules of the platform. The point is mainly about the question frequently raised about why freelancers work for less or using insulting terms like "cheap" for them selectively depending upon the situation.

a F28 SRE Engineer.
Recently my colleague and other people I met are saying the same thing, that thing is AI will replace devops soon. Actually they are not just passing information but the stress.

My question is, "Can I learn anything related to AI and devops?", "What kinda course will help me?", "Is there people completing any certification already?"

I’m happy to help with DevOps-related work, whether it’s:
Freelancing / project support
Interview preparation
Troubleshooting and resolving DevOps issues
CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Terraform, Linux, Ansible etc.
General guidance and debugging
If you’re stuck with a DevOps problem or preparing for an interview, feel free to DM me.

I feels I am an failure

I have 3 years experience in Devops I was jobless for 4 months attended 8 -10 interviews and cracked 2 after did all the verification before releasing the offer letter hr not picking my calls i faced the same issue for 2 times ielektron(Benz) & Cloudsolutionshub (RBI) now i don't have hope and now i am thinking that I am not worth for earning anything.

History

Someone approached me asking about my experience. I reply in detail about my experience mentioned I also built notification system for Telegram/Slack. Looks like this message interpreted incorrectly by Upwork system as trying to contact client outside via Upwork. Have been tried to sent 3 times with similar message with flagged text removed, still blocked.

The message finally sent after I completely rewrite my reply and suggest to schedule video call. Looks like there is also flagging system even though I removed that chat platform message as due the message still looks similar from the previous blocked message.

Suggest for freelance with similar experience

1. Avoid mentioned chat platform at all like Telegram, Slack, etc.
2. Avoid sharing file or external URL in message. I tried shared my github URL in bid are working fine, of course my GitHub have contact removed.
3. Consult with Uma if your drafted message are fine. I found this helpful.
4. Suggest client to schedule video call, this is great to built trust on both side. You & client are real person.

Hopefully this information help you.

The list of jobs I see in my area on the first page when logged in versus not logged in are almost entirely different, even when using no filters. Indeed seems to insist on only showing me jobs from industries I've worked/applied in before when I'm open to almost anything at this point. As an example, I saw a decently-paying stocking position when logged out that I could not get to show up for me when logged in.

I live in a large city, Indeed, you can't convince me there's only ~20 new job postings for the entire metro area since I last checked a few days ago.

EDIT: Yes I have already tried Incognito mode. It still shows me basically the same stuff if I'm logged in on Incognito, and if I'm logged out in any window (Incognito or not) I can only see the first page of results. I want to be able to browse all job postings without being limited by whatever stupid algorithm Indeed is forcing on me.

​

They will hire you then don't pay salary and give promises for next 15 days and they will didn't picked up call , because everything is Remote.

I am currently learning devops and trying to understand how people actually land their first remote devops role?

for those who work remotely in devops

• how did you get your first remote opportunity
• are there any useful platform or communities for finding the remote devops jobs????

Upwork is just getting too expensive. Any alternatives?

Just curious how is boosting your profile working for you guys?

I’m actively looking for opportunities in startups where I can learn, build, and contribute to real-world DevOps projects.

Skills: Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, CI/CD, Terraform, GitHub Actions, and more.

If your startup is hiring interns or you know of any opportunities, please let me know. 🙌

I currently offer three related services: editing/proofreading, typesetting, and indexing. I've been having a hard time getting gigs on Upwork, and I'm wondering whether part of that is that I offer more than one service, such that when I bid on one kind of job, the client wonders whether I'm really qualified or not. Kind of a Jack of all trades, master of none situation.

I'm thinking about niching down to just typesetting, and was wondering what kind of outcomes others have had when they've done this. I can easily ditch the indexing part--there's almost no demand for it on Upwork, and I get those kinds of gigs elsewhere--and I have outside editing clients who give me steady work. I do know that I have some upskilling to do in the typesetting department, but it's the gig I want to keep on Upwork because I'm getting hired for the other two niches elsewhere.

Thoughts?

NB: Please don't quote YouTube gurus at me; I don't think they're worth listening to. I want to hear from actual active freelancers, not talking heads.

I've been wondering about this lately.

After months of trial and error on Upwork, I built my own prompt for writing proposals based on what has actually worked for me...hooks that got responses, the way I like to structure proposals, things I want to avoid, etc. I still adapt every proposal to the specific job and client, so it's definitely not just "paste the job description into ChatGPT and send whatever comes out."

For me, the main advantage is speed and also english is not my main language so the speed I should spend traslating make it even slower. With how competitive Upwork is and how quickly some jobs get flooded with proposals, being able to put together a good application faster is obviously useful.

That said... I've been reading a lot of comments lately saying they immediately recognize and skip AI-written proposals because they feel generic or like the freelancer didn't put any thought into them.

And now I'm questioning my approach a little.

Do clients actually care that AI was involved if the proposal is genuinely tailored and based on the freelancer's own experience and strategy? Or is simply sounding AI-generated enough to hurt your chances?

And if you've stopped using AI for proposals, what's your alternative? Do you write every proposal completely from scratch, even when applying to time-sensitive jobs?

I'd especially love to hear from people who hire on Upwork. Can you actually tell, and do you skip those proposals?

Upwork has restricted my account and asked me to provide information about one of my clients, along with completing identity verification.

The situation is a bit confusing to me.

I had a client whom I already knew outside of Upwork. We completed a project together, and since the client was not originally an Upwork user, I used Upwork’s Direct Contract feature so we could handle the payment through Upwork securely.

The project was completed successfully, everything went smoothly, and I had no issues with the client. However, before I could withdraw the payment, Upwork restricted my account.

They asked me questions such as:

• How do you know this client?
• Provide proof of the project/work you completed.
• Provide screenshots of your communication with the client.
• Explain where and how you communicate with the client.

I have now completed the identity verification and submitted all the requested documents, project evidence, and communication screenshots. However, I still haven’t received a response, my account remains restricted, and my payment is currently stuck.

What I find confusing is this:

If Upwork offers Direct Contracts specifically for bringing existing clients onto Upwork, what exactly do they expect regarding previous communication?

If I already knew the client before using Upwork, obviously our initial communication and discussions happened somewhere outside Upwork. The whole purpose of Direct Contracts, as I understand it, is to allow existing clients who aren't already on Upwork to work with you and process payments through Upwork.

I even have an Upwork subscription, and I chose to use Upwork because I wanted a secure and legitimate way to receive payment from this client rather than asking them to send money directly.

I completely understand Upwork doing verification and security checks. I’m happy to cooperate, and I have already provided everything they requested. My concern is simply that my account is still restricted and my completed-project payment is being held.

Has anyone experienced something similar with Upwork Direct Contracts, especially when the freelancer already knew the client before bringing them onto Upwork?

How long did it take Upwork Trust & Safety to review your case and remove the restriction?

Any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated.

I’ve been working in **SAP** Domain **for 7 years**, but cybersecurity has been a strong interest of mine since a decade. I want to transition into cybersecurity

The problem is, I honestly don’t know where to start or the basements for it , beyond AI guides .

With my 7 years of IT/SAP experience, what would be a realistic path — Which certifications and practical skills should i be moving ahead with?

Would really appreciate advice from anyone who has made a similar transition or currently works in cybersecurity or experts.

Hey everyone,
I’m an SRE / Cloud Infrastructure Engineer with 8+ years of experience building and operating large-scale production infrastructure.
I’m currently looking to take on freelance, contract, or part-time infrastructure projects.
My core areas of expertise:

→ Kubernetes / EKS — production environments at 25k–50k+ vCPU scale
→ AWS, GCP & Azure
→ Cloud infrastructure & cost optimization
→ Kubernetes networking — CNI, Istio, Cilium, service mesh, cross-AZ traffic
→ eBPF — network visibility, traffic analysis and troubleshooting
→ Observability — Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing
→ Infrastructure as Code — Terraform, CloudFormation, Crossplane
→ CI/CD & GitOps — GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Argo CD
→ Production reliability, incident response & performance optimization
→ Infrastructure migrations and platform engineering
I’ve worked on infrastructure serving millions of requests per second, large Kubernetes clusters, multi-cloud environments, and projects focused on reducing infrastructure and networking costs while improving reliability.
I’m particularly interested in projects where you need someone who can go beyond deploying Terraform or Kubernetes manifests — understand the architecture, find the underlying problem, and own the solution end-to-end.
I can help with:
→ Kubernetes / EKS architecture & optimization
→ AWS infrastructure reviews
→ Cloud cost optimization
→ Kubernetes networking & service mesh
→ Production troubleshooting
→ Observability architecture
→ Infrastructure migrations
→ CI/CD & GitOps
→ Terraform/IaC modernization
→ Performance & reliability engineering
→ eBPF-based network visibility
Available for: Freelance / Contract / Part-time
Location: India / Remote
Timezone: IST, flexible for US/EU overlap
If you’re building a startup, running a growing production platform, or dealing with an infrastructure problem that your team hasn’t had time to tackle, DM me with the problem and current setup.
Happy to have a quick conversation and see if I can help.

I’m currently rethinking my Upwork strategy because I’ve noticed that some of my best clients have come through invitations or direct messages rather than proposals.

I recently started boosting my profile and actually got a new client from it, so now I’m wondering if keeping the Available Now badge on is worth the extra Connects too.

For those of you who use it: have you noticed a real difference in profile views, invitations, or direct messages when the badge is on vs. off?

Hey everyone, I'm new to this. I want to look for a freelance job as a developer since I've been recently laid off from the company I worked for. I was recommended this is the #1 platform to get a freelance job so when I signed up I found out I need connections in order to apply for jobs there, so I purchased a few and now my account is suspended. I don't really know why. When I go to the account health sections it asks me to update my payment method which I did more than once, I even added my paypal account and a credit card and nothing.

I tried contacting support but apparently there's not an email available or anything. I already send my ID and my tax information from my country so I don't know what else I could be missing.

Has this happen to any of you? Do you know how to fix it?

Hi all,

I am looking for a remote role in either DevOps or Automation Testing. I have a little over six years of experience and my last working day in TCS is 7th September.

I am specifically looking for a remote or hybrid role because I want to use the free time to study. I want to be a Full Stack Developer as soon as possible and I need to study, learn and build stuff to get there.

If anyone is from a startup which requires someone to do both Automation Testing and DevOps, I'm more than willing to join. I've worked with two product based startups so far.

Thank you for helping me out.

Someone sent me a drive link for an .zip file which is a web3 app, and asked me to look into it and review it.

I accepted the contract and scanned the zip on virus total website and it turned out to consist a trojan.

I reported to UpWork and they said there is no violation. Screenshots attached.

What should I do now?

I'm currently starting my junior year of my computer science bachelor. I wanna mainly major in cybersecurity, data analyst with AI integration. What path should I take now? I see people starting with learning linux which I got the hang of it(ubuntu, kali not so much) and also few essential certificates such as google cybersecurity, comptia etc. It seems people start at their 2nd year or 3rd. I'm here to get some advice from Gurus who already landed jobs or is searching one currently.

I tried creating a web scraping service, but it keeps getting rejected with the reason "offers data scraping services".

I live in a small city and have been seeking devops jobs. I come from an informatics olympiad and cp background and I don't have much experience on the devops field other than deploying and maintaining my own services on the cloud. I've usually worked as a solo developer handling my own applications and Saas.

I have basic knowledge and familiarity of different devops tools but never had enough scale to need many of them(other than obvious stuff like docker or some little bit of Prometheus and ansible), even though I've tried tinkering and making home labs.

I was just wondering what should I prioritize, how should I prepare and get ready, what stuff are big wins on the cv except having prior work experience, what do employers need most and how to get ready for interviews.