Appsfactory 

GmbH

Reviews

Working atmosphere

Du wirst ständig beobachtet. Du bekommst kaum Feedback zu deiner Arbeit, außer wenn etwas nicht stimmt. Und selbst wenn du deine Arbeit gut machst, gibt es NIEMALS Lob.

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Hat glaube ein gutes image unter IT-Kennern. Sonst kennt das Unternehmen kaum jemand.

Work-Life Balance

Geht so. Es wird die maximale Stundenanzahl (20h/W) erwartet. In der Klausurenphase wollten sie, dass ich normal weiterarbeite (!?). Überstunden darf man nicht machen um diese dann abfeiern zu können. Als Werkstudentin wurde auch erwartet, dass ich eine ganze Business Unit übernehme. Nix also mit erstmal lernen und dann Hilfsarbeiten machen. Wenn man mit einer Aufgabe fertig war, bekam man einfach mehr. Wertschätzung gab es auch kaum - die Leistung wurde nur mit einem "Hmh" bestätigt.

Career/Professional development

Salary/Benefits

Wenig über Mindestlohn. Schlecht für die Leistung, die erwartet wird.

Environmental and social responsibility

Führungskräfte fliegen oft. Müll wird aber getrennt.

Collegiality

Sehr schlecht. Die Kollegen in meinem Team waren zwar sehr nett zu mir, haben mich aber hinter meinem Rücken gegenüber dem Chef kritisiert. NIE hat man mir persönlich Verbesserungspunnte vorgeschlagen. Immer wenn ich mal eine Frage zu einem Verfahren/Fall bezüglich meines Kunden hatte wurden die Hände gehoben- es seien ja nicht ihre Kunden und deshalb könne man mir nicht helfen. Mind you, dass ich erst frisch im Studium bim und natürlich noch nicht alles aus eigener Erfahrung lösen kann.

Interaction with older colleagues

Waren alle im mittleren Alter. Gab halt nicht so viele gemeinsame Gesprächsthemen.

Leadership behavior

War zwar nett aber die Erwartungen, wie gesagt, viel zu hoch für Leute, die vollzeit eigentlich studieren. Es wurde die Leistung einer Vollzeit Fachkraft erwartet. Feedback-Talk nach einem Monat war auch lächerlich: Positives kurz erwähnt, danach nur so aus der Nase gezogene Kritikpunkte genannt (z.B. Emails genauer lesen)- diese wurden dann aber als normal abgestempelt, da ich ja frisch aus der Schule komme. Fun fact: einen Monat später war genau dieser Feedback Talk Kündigungsgrund. Was GENAU ich falsch gemacht habe, konnte mir nicht gesagt werden. Meine Arbeit an sich war ja obviously gut genug - denn sonat hätte ich von anderen Projektleitern nicht so viel positives feedback bekommen.

Working conditions

2mal die woche gibts einen Obstkorb (yay). Büro ist auch hübsch. Die Arbeit an sich ist halt... überschaubar

Communication

Ich bin Studentin und hatte noch keine Berufserfahrung, da ich erst vor Kurzem mit dem Studium angefangen habe. Ich bekam eine kurze Einführung, den Rest musste ich mir selbst beibringen. Man muss immer sehr konkret nachfragen, damit einem etwas erklärt wird.

Equality

Joa waren sowohl viele Frauen, als auch Männer da. In Führungspositionen doch eher Männer.

Interesting tasks

Geht so. Wer Exceltabellen und stumpfes Eintippen mag fühlt sich hier wohl.

What I like about the employer

Spannende Projekte und sicherer Arbeitsplatz

Suggestions for improvement

Bessere Kommunikation in der Öffentlichkeit

Career/Professional development

Environmental and social responsibility

Es gibt Mülltrennung, ISO 14001, etc. aber steht nicht so im Unternehmensfokus

Collegiality

Die Projektteams gehen zusammen durch dick und dünn

Interaction with older colleagues

Einige Kollegen sind schon über 50 und trotzdem stark integriert

Interesting tasks

Man arbeitet für Top Unternehmen wie BMW, Mercedes, VW, Ottobock, Targobank, etc.

Working atmosphere

My colleagues are mostly wonderful people from different parts of the world.

Work-Life Balance

Okayish but if there is some burning deadline you have to forget about your life and concentrate on work.

Environmental and social responsibility

They take advantage of the fact that the majority of their workforce comes from abroad and is heavily dependent on this company.

Career/Professional development

Collegiality

My colleagues are mostly wonderful people from different parts of the world.

Leadership behavior

The management feels very random, decisions are not thought-trough. No discussions are possible. People are fired for random reasons.

Working conditions

It's just a body-shop company. They get cheap work-force and sell it to their clients.

Communication

This company is simply non-transparent. Lying management and HR.

Salary/Benefits

It's nearly impossible to get a salary raise.

Equality

Depends on your skin color, knowledge of german language and how personally close to management you are.

Interesting tasks

Depends on your project. But mostly... just no

What I like about the employer

Appsfactory is an up-and-coming company that is mastering the challenges of growth. A lot is being done to become more professional. New jobs are being created – not enough, but they exist for now. Young talent is being promoted and opportunities for further development are also being sought for senior positions. Risks are quickly identified and responded to. Appsfactory is doing a lot right. I like that there is an office policy. I find it much more efficient when you can talk to people on site and don't have to constantly wait for chat messages to be answered.

What I dislike about the employer

Some managers are resistant to criticism. People are increasingly leaving the same departments, and the blame is being placed on several parties, but no one ever questions themselves. This is a shame, as it means a lot of potential is being lost.
Management communication could also be improved slightly. A lot is shared in all-hands meetings, but projects are kept secret for too long, even though the office grapevine has long been aware of them, which creates unnecessary distance between management and employees. I do feel that management always strives to keep all employees well informed, but sometimes they go about it in a somewhat clumsy manner.
The HR team is often mentioned here. I think there is a lot of criticism that is not always entirely justified. I feel that they consider us employees to be important and that they do try to support us as best they can. But it is definitely true that there is a glass wall between them and their colleagues.
I can't remember a time when an HR colleague actively joined us for lunch. Of course, everyone can do whatever they want in their own break, but we always sit together in a mixed group at lunchtime, so why do they separate themselves from us? I think they try to appear very professional, but that makes them seem cold and unapproachable as a department. That's very sad, because when you do have contact with individuals, they are very supportive and friendly.

Work-Life Balance

As a ‘normal’ developer, designer or QA employee, this can be easily arranged. For everyone else, the following applies: More work, less life.

Career/Professional development

Salary/Benefits

Salary depends heavily on the department. From a personal feeling I would say developers have a market-specific salary, while administrative staff earn below the local average. Salary increases are weighed more carefully, which is a positive development, as underperformers are no longer rewarded for poor performance.
However, salary increases are capped at a percentage, which only widens the salary gap between higher and lower earners and does not show appreciation for lower earners.

Environmental and social responsibility

No special attention is paid to it, but we aren't wastefully either.

Collegiality

Recruitment is extremely well tailored to human needs. You can rely on these colleagues. But there are a few exceptions who want to elbow their way into the limelight.

Interaction with older colleagues

No distinction is made based on a colleague's age. Everyone is treated equally.

Leadership behavior

We have good leaders but they are very busy.

Working conditions

Sometimes very large rooms where colleagues do not leave for meetings, which keeps the noise level high. Otherwise, the facilities are excellent

Equality

There are only four women in leadership positions. With 450 employees, this is almost embarrassing. Salary differences are also noticeable but are ignored by the management team.

What I dislike about the employer

Kosteinsparungen = Keine Teamevents oder Kostenerstattungen für Mitarbeitende aber Teamleads und CEOs fahren für einen Workshop mehrere Tage zusammen in ein schönes Hotel außerhalb von Deutschland und lassen es sich gut gehen.. ? Wie erklärt man das?

Suggestions for improvement

Transparenz und Ehrlichkeit! In allen Bereichen. Mitarbeitenden Vertrauen gegenüber bringen und sie nicht mit Micromanagement und Präsenzpflichten versuchen zu kontrollieren. Feedback ernst nehmen, Menschen ernst nehmen. Wenn man keine angenehme Arbeitsumgebung / keinen sinnvollen Arbeitsalltag / keine angenehme Kultur schafft, wo die Menschen freiwillig ins Büro kommen und es Sinn für Sie ergibt, sollte man darüber nachdenken ob das Problem nicht woanders als an den „bösen“ Mitarbeitenden liegt. Viele erfolgreiche Global Player und sogar unser Partner EdenSpiekermann sind kulturell deutlich besser aufgestellt und müssen ihre Mitarbeiter zu nichts zwingen und man fühlt sich dort wohler.

Working atmosphere

eher altmodische, kalte unfreundliche Büros.

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Ich würde Appsfactory aktuell nicht weiterempfehlen.

Work-Life Balance

Da man gezwungen wird 2 Tage pro Woche ins Büro zu kommen, egal ob es arbeitstechnisch Sinn macht ( ich sitze mit mehreren Kolleg*innen im Büro und alle telefonieren gleichzeitig mit anderen, man rennt von einer Meetingsbox - wenn sie frei ist - zur nächsten .... ) nicht besonders gut und es gibt auch keine Ausnahmen, man wird hier mehr oder weniger wie eine Nummer behandelt (eine von vielen eben)

Career/Professional development

Leadership behavior

Leider in einigen Fällen absolut unprofessionell, ein Vorgesetzter in einer zentralen / universalen Position hat in der Vergangenheit wiederholt massiv Druck ausgeübt, micromanaged und versucht Kolleg*innen gegeneinander auszuspielen.
Direkte Teamleads hingegen absolut Vorbildlich und toll.

Working conditions

leider sehr laut in Großraumbüros da man relativ eng aufeinander hockt und viele Personen gleichzeitig in Meetings stecken, die Meetingräume sind furchtbar isoliert, wenn man hybride Meetigs hält hört man die Stimmen als remote Person kaum, es hallt sehr stark (wurde bereits negativ von Kunden angemerkt) egal in welcher Location ist in allen gleich schlimm.

Salary/Benefits

es wird versucht (arbeitsrechtlich nicht erlaubt) verboten intern über Gehälter zu sprechen, wenn man es dann mal tut merkt man große Unterschiede in gleichen Positionen bzw einige extrem unterbezahlt und trotz mehrfachem Anmerken von Mitarbeitenden ist auch nicht geplant transparenter mit dem Thema umzugehen (zB Gehaltsmatrix).
Man bekommt auch keine Gehaltserhöhungen aktuell - nur Zuzahlungen wie das DE Ticket (nach langem Anfrageprozess)

Equality

mehr Männer in Führungspositionen

Interesting tasks

mal mehr mal weniger

Working atmosphere

Lately, with the mandatory office days, they give off the impression of controlling employees and putting them under pressure.

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As someone said: Great on the outside, but abusive on the inside.

Career/Professional development

Salary/Benefits

You probably won’t get much less anywhere else—there’s hardly any bonus at all.

Collegiality

Nice colleagues—perhaps one of the few positive aspects here—if they don’t leave like some others who already escaped!

Interaction with older colleagues

They don’t care if people are unhappy; instead, they simply replace them with new hires—treating employees like nothing more than gears in their money-making machine.

Leadership behavior

You hear lies and witness attempts to trick employees into working more for the same salary—or sometimes even less.
Middle management is okay.

Communication

I used to hear that this company had a flat hierarchy, but that’s a thing of the past. Management now makes almost all the decisions, while HR plays the "Pigeon Post" role. If they need something from you, it happens fast, but when it’s the other way around—like appraisals—it usually takes more than a month, or even several months in some cases.

Interesting tasks

It heavily depends on the team and expertise level. Some usually get to work on cutting-edge tech projects, while others are mostly garbage collectors dealing with legacy systems.
They essentially forced some employees to switch their tech stack to align with the projects, which is no easy task, yet they offer nothing in return.

What I like about the employer

Interesting projects.

What I dislike about the employer

People are treated based on their nationalities. Even if you are billable and getting lot of money for company there is never a fair raise. Trainings or career plan is not there.

Suggestions for improvement

Give fair raise to foreigners. Do not use German language as argument. Stop buying more companies and take care of what you have first. Coming to office and only doing remote meetings does not worth at all please think about it again.

Working atmosphere

Run behind Money even though you might die while running

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Very shiny from outside, completely disaster inside

Work-Life Balance

Depends on the project

Career/Professional development

Salary/Benefits

No raise only complains from HR on useless topics

Environmental and social responsibility

Never saw anything

Collegiality

Good

Interaction with older colleagues

No issue

Leadership behavior

Not good

Working conditions

Working from office in 2025. With room full of people who all are doing different remote meetings. Who on earth came up with this idea.

Communication

Depends on the level but C level is really worst

Equality

If you are a foreigner do not expect raise

What I like about the employer

the colleagues

What I dislike about the employer

when you get hired, you get the misleading feeling, that the HR-Department cares for you.
They don't.
Instead of mediating between the worker's requests and the company's interests, they only represent the company.

Suggestions for improvement

Be more transparent.
Don't lie to your workers.
Take responsibility for your actions, instead of hiding the results, when they didn't work out.

Working atmosphere

It feels weird to work for this company, since the management is blaming us for their bad middle-management, while reducing our (almost non-existent) "benefits" to a minimum and is not taking responsibility for their decisions.
Also there have been almost no raises this year, since the management wanted to acquire a new company.

The competent and friendly colleagues are the only reason, I haven't left yet.

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While transparency is not implemented, Middle-Management is investing a lot to show a good image to the outside:
- most kununu reviews feel payed
- final good bye messages to our af-general channel get reworked by management, if they don't like them
- new colleagues get cushioned to show them that everything works like a charm in this company

Work-Life Balance

pretty good, since the only requirements of the CXOs is that you are working on "billable" projects, which you have almost no control over.

But there is always time for more unhelpful meetings or plenty of coffee breaks.

Career/Professional development

Salary/Benefits

As already stated, raises are almost always declined. The best performing people got a 3-5% raise this year.
Long-term workers might get skipped or denied, depending on their origin.

Benefits are mostly just so Appsfactory can say "we have benefits", but these benefits are just here so we aren't eligible to receive bonuses.
Also the company parties got downsized a lot this year. Maybe next year we will have no company party at all.

Environmental and social responsibility

No measures were taken. The highest paying client gets accepted.
Moral doesn't play a big role here.

Collegiality

It feels more and more like this company has a "good" and a "bad" side of the force (like in star wars).
The colleagues motivate each other and listen carefully, but the if you communicate your concerns to the "dark side", you have to fear getting laid off immediately, without further notice or transparent explanation. This has happened multiple times now.

Interaction with older colleagues

Old people only get hired for management positions. Otherwise Appsfactory is always looking for cheap and young personell.
Confirmed by outsiders.

At least the get treated fairly.

Leadership behavior

Most direct superiors are competent, listen actively to your requests and take time to solve your problems with you, but you never know, what is being communicated behind your back.

Communication

The more or less regular all-hands meetings don't feel honest at all. Management is dodging questions, they don't feel comfortable answering.
Also the new middle-management employees, don't take the time to explain their requests or communicate their problems transparently.
Instead they say "please submit your forms better" without enough context on how to accomplish their wishes.

Equality

Appsfactory brags with it's diversity, but never tells you about how foreigners get treated here.
Foreigners get way less income and almost no raises.

Also every working contract has some clauses like "don't talk about your income", which is illegal to prohibit in Germany. Management knows this, which is why they added the clause "if any clause doesn't apply, you can't sue us".
This has the consequence that foreigners stick to rules, that aren't legitimate, while fearing that they might get terminated.

Interesting tasks

We haven't acquired a lot of new projects and we are only implementing "best practices", that we have already implemented.
Interesting tasks are only assigned to "high-performers".

What I like about the employer

You can act very freely and proactivity is appreciated. This creates space to develop and to get things done. The parties are amazing.

What I dislike about the employer

I am very happy at the moment.

Suggestions for improvement

Maybe think about the ‘old hands’ again and again. That's certainly being done, I just want to point out that it's always a challenge to keep the level in the area of salary the same with new hires.

Working atmosphere

Great energy, especially at the HQ in Leipzig.

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Very good so far, we've also had a lot of positive feedback from customers. Even when things don't go as planned, you always manage to make everyone happy.

Work-Life Balance

In an agency, you may have to survive a peak here and there, and sometimes things can get a bit busy, but overall you can work very flexibly.

Career/Professional development

Salary/Benefits

Very appropriate. Sure, there are exceptions, but generally good. The current times are, of course, a challenge for everyone.

Environmental and social responsibility

I think more could be done, including participating in official reports, such as ESG.

Collegiality

Top.

Interaction with older colleagues

Overall, there are a lot of young people in the AF, but the veterans and older members are also treated with respect.

Leadership behavior

Good dialogue and you are also given the trust to drive things forward yourself.

Working conditions

You can get everything you need there.

Communication

Newsletters are offered in various areas, as are all-hands meetings. I feel informed.

Equality

It would be nice to see more women in leadership positions.

Interesting tasks

Exciting new challenges arise time and again, which is in the nature of things at an agency.

What I like about the employer

Lockere, moderne Umgangsform (Duzen) inklusive "Chefetage." Wirkt wertschätzend und man fühlt sich als wertvolles Mitglied und wird direkt eingebunden.
Die 3 Geschäftsführer sind alle nahbar und selbst noch aktiv ins Tagesgeschäft eingebunden. (evtl. Entlastung durch VP o.ä. nötig). Sie sind immer offen für einen Schwatz an der Kaffeemaschine oder ansprechbar bei Problemen. Und feiern Seite an Seite mit den Mitarbeitenden auf sämtlichen Partys. Das hab ich so tatsächlich noch nie erlebt.

What I dislike about the employer

Entstehende "Gläserne Wand" zwischen People&Culture (ehemals HR) und allen anderen.

Suggestions for improvement

- Mitarbeiterfeedback ernst nehmen. Es wird immer wieder ermutigt dieses abzugeben aber am Ende werden die Punkte übergangen oder man bekommt eine unbefriedigende Antwort zurück.
-Ziele / Leistung messen und kontrollieren, gerade im non-billable Bereich.
- Make the Jahresbonus happen.
- Feelgoodmanagement fürs Feelgoodmanagement. Der Fokus ist vor allem bei den Entwicklern, und die "internen" (IT, Finance, Assistance...) fallen oft hinten runter. Hier ist leider oft so, dass man einfach nur der Dienstleister ist und niemanden interessiert ob man sich wohlfühlt.

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Nach außen Top. Die Kunden schätzen die Arbeit und Leistungen wirklich sehr und man gibt sich im Umgang mit ihnen echt sehr viel Mühe. Die PTLs versuchen immer alles möglich zu machen. Intern bekommt man eben auch die unschönen Sachen mit, daher ist es aktuell durchwachsen.

Environmental and social responsibility

Die Mülltrennung funktioniert mittelmäßig. Eine Biotonne wäre toll. Das liegt meines Wissens aber in den Händen des Gebäudemanagements.
Es werden (zB nach feiern/grillen etc.) unglaublich viele Lebensmittel weggeworfen - hier könnte man die MA ermutigen sich ggf etwas einzupacken oder am nächsten Tag zu verspeisen. Auch die Bestellvorgänge (Amazon) könnten optimiert werden ( zB 1x pro Woche, 2x im Monat)

Career/Professional development

Collegiality

Jeder der schonmal hier gearbeitet hat, vermisst am Ende des Tages die Kollegen! Hier arbeiten wirklich viele, tolle, unterschiedliche, innovative Menschen. #Appsfactorians

Working conditions

Moderne, zentrale Büros

Communication

Darf gerne transparenter werden

Equality

Leider zu wenig Frauen in leitenden Positionen (zum Zeitpunkt 4). Hier darf man gerne nachlegen.