I'm a programmer, occasionally I use it to find people to help me with side projects. It seems to work pretty well, once you have the interview process down you can find some good people on there.
Got any tips on how to get going on a site like Upwork? I'm not sure I tried that one before, but I had a horrible experience on Freelancer.com and I've sorta shied away from those since then. I have enough on my plate with grad school and a full-time job at the moment, but if I ever find myself in dire straits I'd like to have options.
Toptal as a freelancer for full or part-time I find better, even if it comes with all sorts of other issues like their opaque refund policy. There's other freelancer sites around too that are similar, usually posting on remote job boards like remoteok, weworkremotely, jobspresso ect. Surprisingly making a post on your local Craigslist you want contract, P/T work pans out too if some local company decides to contract you but I wouldn't work for individuals there since you'll likely not get paid. There's also here, the monthly freelancer for hire post.
Charge bellow market rate in order to build reputation than brace for the day some dick will complain about some bullshit and they pull the rug under your feet.