Distributed Teams

Why we do it and what we have learned along the way

“What does distributed actually mean?”

Distributed is the adjective attributed to something shared or spread out. At xgeeks (a member of KI group), our teams are spread across four main locations. Not only the big cities deserve to exclusively build cool products such as Tamanna and cloudmobility. xgeeks was created under this belief! And… here we are, two years later with offices in Portugal and Germany.

This adventure of building our distributed team started in Leiria, Portugal. Later, the Lisbon and Munich offices became part of our locations too. And, most recently, we hired our first xgeeks team members in Viseu, Portugal! The xgeeks team has been growing and we have plans to keep growing in this upcoming year. If you would like to join a team of great software engineers and data engineers in any of these locations, you can check our open positions here.

One of the questions we get asked the most is why we selected these specific cities to grow our team. Leiria, Lisbon, Munich and Viseu were all chosen as our selected locations mainly due to the quality of their talent. We provide the opportunity to access relevant and interesting projects to all kind of talent regardless of where people are based. A close relationship with relevant stakeholders (such as with schools and universities and others) has also been key to the healthy and steady growth of our team of engineers. This is not only dynamic for xgeeks but also for the emerging tech ecosystems that are in each one of the cities where we are located.

xgeeks locations are selected based on common set of principles: great talent, great education and community stakeholders, great quality of life and great infrastructures. Altogether, these four offices work daily on a distributed team approach. This has brought us a much more diverse and broader talent pool; it is great to see how this (technological and cultural) diversity impacts the products we are building and the culture we embody at xgeeks.

We still have a long way to go in regards to distributed Teams, but these past two years have taught us some interesting lessons. The main one would be that: there’s nothing like our culture! Take a look 👀

• Remote Recruitment: All recruitment steps are now remote, from interviews to technical challenges. Talent can be based in any of xgeeks cities and we want to make sure we provide a consistent and smooth candidate experience.
• Remote Onboarding: The induction process for all our new joiners is conducted remotely and it has been quite successful. Some days, we even have multiple joiners starting in more than one location. The People eXperience (PX) team prepares everything from the paperwork to the schedule for the first weeks of each new joiner, this is done remotely to all our locations. Even the welcome kits with equipment and company merchandising are delivered to the new joiners’ home so that they are prepared and ready for their first day. And… of course, our onboarding buddies have a crucial role!

• Breakfast Together a.k.a. Team Breakfast: Once a month, you can find a group of xgeeks enjoying their breakfast together, regardless of where the teams are. Even before the pandemic, cameras would always be on to have this moment together in all our offices. It’s a great chance to meet the team and start the day with some extra energy!
• Company Breakfast: On a monthly basis too, KI group’s CEO gathers the team for a group-wide update and to get everyone up to speed on how the group is evolving. This is an additional opportunity to see some familiar faces and get filled in on the future plans for the company.
• Lunch Together: each time there’s an excuse for lunch, we make sure we enjoy it! Of course, having new team members is the perfect reason for that. A team lunch is held both at the office and remotely for each new joiner, it’s a nice chance to have a first meal with the team and meet some new members and make some introductions. During this pandemic, we even supported some local restaurants by ordering food directly to the houses of our team and we enjoyed a family-style meal, all together, remotely.

• All-hands meetings: these meetings are held every two weeks to give updates on all sorts of xgeeks themes: PX updates, team updates and clients updates as well as other relevant information. It’s also a great space to see everyone and for some Q&A. These sessions are recorded and shared with the team so that can be revisited whenever needed.
• Newsletter: New joiners, company anniversaries, team testimonials, company news, events, engineering news, well-being content and other cool resources are some of the topics you might find in our internal monthly newsletter. This is an initiative that aims to get everyone on the same page and aware of all information our teams may need to prepare for the upcoming month.
• Slack initiatives: Slack is a contender as the most important tool for async communication in distributed teams! At xgeeks, it has several purposes besides daily communications: new joiners’ introductions, Kudos, company anniversaries, birthday celebrations, inspiring quotes, tips for working from home or remotely, challenges and important team updates. This creates an open space for communication across locations and teams. And, of course, emojis have a special use to show emotions and reactions.
• Stretching sessions, game or dance “nights” are just some of the team building activities xgeeks team has been organising to gather everyone, create memories and establish connections between everyone. We sure love our work, but we also enjoy some “out of office” activities to relax and see some familiar faces.

These events and initiatives are all organised with the goals of creating homogeneous experiences across all locations, promoting open communication channels and establishing healthy and cooperative relationships between everyone. Ultimately, they aim to create a smooth and organically connected office and remote work settings.

The current pandemic has brought some challenges that were overcome because the teams were used to working under remote conditions before, and has even intensified our calendars and brought the team closer. We are now looking forward to the day it will be safe to bring all the teams together for a well-deserved celebration of what xgeeks has achieved lately. We will keep you posted on our social media channels, keep an eye out 😉

This article was written by Helena Patrício and Rita Gouveia, part of the PX team at xgeeks!