Upwork Channel Manager

Your mission

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Upwork Channel Manager to take full ownership of our Upwork operation — from bidding and profile management to analytics, team leadership, and channel development. You will run one of our most important lead generation channels end-to-end, managing bids across multiple profiles and leading a team of lead generators across shifts.

This is a senior operator role. You will set the strategy, execute the day-to-day, and be held accountable for real numbers — replies, qualified calls, SQLs, and closed deals. 

What You Will Own

Bidding & Proposal Strategy

• Run the bidding operation end-to-end: bids per month across multiple profiles, with clear quality standards and no drops in view rates. Manage Connect spending: keep cost per SQL in healthy ranges and reconcile refunds from lost/closed jobs.

• Own scanner configuration: weekly optimization of underperforming scanners, applying small iterative changes — cover letter variants, profile selection, smart boosting — and scaling what works.

• Write and test cover letters: continuous A/B testing of length, opening lines, trust signals, portfolio anchors, and niche framing. 

Profile & Channel Development

• Optimize profiles for visibility and conversion: titles, descriptions, portfolios, keywords, and positioning. Align every profile with our current propositions, including AI-assisted development.

• Launch and onboard new profiles: when the channel can absorb them, plan, launch, and season new profiles to keep the operation scaling.

Analytics & Reporting

• Track the full funnel weekly: bids → views → replies → calls → SQLs → deals, by profile, by scanner, by day-of-week, by bidder.

• Investigate bottlenecks: the reply-to-call conversion is the current priority. Pull the conversation data, find the patterns, test fixes, report on results.

Team Leadership

• Manage the lead generation team (currently 2–3 people across shifts): set KPIs, run 1:1s, review performance, hire, onboard, and — when needed — make the hard calls on underperformers.

• Build processes that scale: standardize how bids are recorded, how SQLs are qualified, how data is logged. The team needs to be measurable, not dependent on any one heroic performer.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Work with Sales: hand off SQLs cleanly to the team running qualification calls. 

• Work with Analytics: partner on dashboards, data exports, and attribution.

Your profile

What You Bring

Must-Haves

• 3+ years of hands-on Upwork experience, ideally running a bidding operation for an agency or service business of $10m and more.

• Proven track record of improving funnel conversion — not just running volume. You can point to specific numbers you moved.

• Strong analytical skills: fluent in spreadsheets, comfortable modeling unit economics (cost per SQL, LTV, CAC), able to read funnel data and form real hypotheses.

• Experience managing a lead gen or BDR-style team: hiring, onboarding, performance management, compensation design.

• Deep familiarity with Upwork's mechanics: Connects, boosting, algorithm changes, profile optimization, client filtering, scanner/automation tools

• Experience bidding across multiple verticals — software development, full-stack, healthcare, logistics, CRM, fintech, or similar.

• Excellent written English. You will be writing and editing cover letters, proposals, and profile copy.

• Process discipline. You document what you do, you record data consistently, and you expect the same from your team.

• Judgment. You know when to enforce process and when to let a high performer operate their own way.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with AI-assisted proposal generation 

• Familiarity with LinkedIn / Email outbound

• Background in positioning software development agencies or AI-assisted development services.

• Experience working with distributed teams across Eastern Europe and other time zones.

Why us?

About us

Index is a UK-based company providing end-to-end remote-work services, powered by our digital platform. We help leading companies like GoEuro, Vodafone, Venly, YC startups, and 100 more companies to scale their engineering team by finding and managing high-performing tech talent.

The company was founded 2019 and headquartered in London. We unite top engineering talent from around the world and connect them with innovative companies seeking high-performing teams.

It was co-founded by an Oxford alumnus and tech executive with a track record of building successful global teams and scaling output rapidly.

Why Join Index.dev

We are officially recognized by the Financial Times as one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies: in 2024 we ranked 29th overall and 6th in IT & Software among the FT 1000.

We scale faster than market average — enabling us to offer frequent, meaningful opportunities for those who perform.

From Talent Marketplace to Full-Service Software Powerhouse

In October 2025 we completed the acquisition of Codemotion — a seasoned, U.S.-based custom software development company with a 60+ strong engineering team, decades of enterprise-project experience, and clients such as NASA, Neom, and MongoDB.

This strategic move transforms us from a talent-matching platform into a full-fledged software delivery partner: end-to-end solutions, from MVP to production, including CTO-level leadership, project management, design, QA, and scalable engineering teams.

As a result — along with helping hire developers, we’re delivering entire products and complex systems. We now serve clients in 180+ countries, offering broad timezone overlap, flexible staffing models, and a diversity of technical skills and cultural backgrounds.

Our growth trajectory ensures that high-performers don’t just onboard — they accelerate. With access to enterprise-level clients, cross-functional teams, and varied domains (FinTech, Blockchain, Healthcare, AI), talent can grow in ways rarely possible in traditional setups.

Our Vision & Mission: Where We’re Going Next

We are growing fast and have the vision of building the leading software development company in the world.
We believe that remote-first, globally distributed engineering teams are the future.

Our goals include:

1. Expand into a full end-to-end software delivery partner — delivering complete engineering solutions, from CTO-level leadership to full product development.
2. Attract and serve enterprise-level clients — by strengthening delivery quality, project reliability, and compliance to handle complex, high-stakes projects.
3. Deliver speed, quality, and flexibility at scale — ensuring clients get vetted, ready-to-interview talent and high-performing teams with exceptional turnaround time.
4. Sustain rapid, high-quality growth — continuing our momentum as one of Europe’s fastest-growing tech companies while preserving performance, culture, and delivery excellence.

Giving back is part of our DNA. We donate around 10% of the revenue to support vulnerable groups — including children, women, refugees — and invests in education programs for young students and future IT professionals.

If you’re motivated by scale, impact, complex projects, and global collaboration, Index.dev is the kind of place where your efforts will be amplified.
Here are some reviews from our teammates on -> Glassdoor.   

You would make an ideal candidate for our company if you are willing to commit to the following:
Above Average Principles:
Integrity.
Respect. Show empathy and respect to others and their feelings; Show others that you care.
Extra-Mile. Excellence and work ethics. Ask the question: “What else can I do?”; Reject average, good to pass by.
Move Quickly and Be Resourcefulness. Do more with less.
Ongoing Learner. Ask the questions: “What coaching do you have for me?” and “What can I do better?“; What is the learning here?.
Team Player. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.
Extra Smile. We look to the positive side in every situation. We love what we do every day. Ask the question: “What is good in this?”.