Pauses and offboarding

A project membership can be paused for a while or ended outright. Here's what each one means for you and what happens afterwards.

Pauses

A project team may temporarily pause your membership, for example when the project is on hold or work volume drops. A pause is not a removal:

• Your access to the project's tools (Discord channels, work platform, documents) is suspended for the duration of the pause.
• The project drops off your Active Projects list while you're paused, and comes back when you're resumed.
• Your history on the project, including hours, completed tasks, and quality scores, is kept.
• You keep your spot: on projects with a limited number of seats, a paused member's seat isn't given to someone else.
• When the team resumes your membership, your access is restored automatically.

A pause can also apply to a whole project at once. If a project is put on hold, access to its tools is suspended for everyone on it, and restored automatically when the project resumes. Access is also removed once a project is completed or wound down. You won't always see a separate "on hold" label for this, so if a project's tools disappear unexpectedly, that's usually why.

If you're unsure why a project has gone quiet, ask the project team or contact support.

Offboarding

Offboarding ends your membership on a specific project, and the project no longer appears under Active Projects on your Projects page. Common reasons include:

• You withdrew, meaning you asked to leave the project (see Leaving a project yourself)
• Bootcamp not passed (see Bootcamp)
• Quality issues, where work was repeatedly below the project's quality bar
• Rules violation, meaning you broke project or platform rules
• The project ending or winding down

When you're offboarded, access to that project's tools is removed. Earnings you've already accrued on the project are unaffected, and approved work is still paid out as usual (see Weekly payouts).

Offboarding is per project

📘

Offboarding is per project

Being offboarded from one project does not remove you from SME Careers. You keep your profile, your other projects, and your eligibility for new invitations.

The exception is serious rule violations, which can affect your standing on the platform as a whole.

Leaving a project yourself

If you need to step away from a project, request a withdrawal from the project page:

1. Open Projects and select the project.
2. Select Request withdrawal.
3. Choose a Reason (for example I found another role, Workload, or Schedule or availability) and fill in Tell us more, which is required.
4. Select Send request.

Your request goes to the project team for review, and the project page shows Withdrawal requested — awaiting review. You stay on the project, with your access, until they confirm it. Leaving this way keeps your record clean and leaves the door open to future invitations.

What happens next

After offboarding, keep your profile and availability up to date. Project teams match new opportunities against your profile, so a complete one means better-fitting invitations.

Related articles

• Project invitations
• Bootcamp
• Working in production
• Weekly payouts