I did two jobs a couple years ago. One was great, no problem. Wrote some software to do a thing and we both walked away happy. The other turned into a nightmare, with the client withholding about $600 and me spending probably 20 hours negotiating with him and defending myself before it finally going to their internal arbitration (I won, because I'd done the work and had lots of evidence to prove it). Not the best ROI. If you do it, I'd suggest working with the client to understand their needs. If they just want hourly work, then they need to be comfortable that a particular piece of work might not be done by the end of the week or whatever. If they want a specific task done, use UW's milestone-based payments. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by understanding that distinction up front. Also the hourly work requires the Upwork app snapshotting your screen while you're "on the clock. " I'd probably avoid those contracts altogether if I went back today.
☰