Freelancer reviews

Very complex and messy technology stack. Excessive pressure to 'get things up and running' quickly as opposed to getting things done correctly. Freelancer.com is forced to hire an ever increasing number of engineers to manage the growing mess that is GaF (the core of Freelancer.com) and the enormous amount of unnecessary complexity all around it. There is a nasty culture of finger-pointing, blaming and scapegoating - Everyone is expected to 'take ownership' of some part of the code instead of solving problems as a team using rational constructive debate. Employee retention is very low - Very few people stay for longer than 2 years.

Clique-y product and management team, general disregard for engineers. Difficult to change position once you've started. Limited opportunities for promotion, senior eng's/team leads are often paid the same as general engineers, at least for the first few years in their role. Low pay ceiling - expect 70k until (well after) promotion, which may take 3+ years. PMs usually promoted within 6 months or so. Dwindling number of engineers in Sydney, but growing overseas where employment is cheaper. General priority of managers seems to be growth hacking and producing product videos. Limited opportunity to create solid code and write tests - PMs usually instruct engineers to cut corners if it will speed up the release of the product.