Appsfactory 

GmbH

Reviews

What I like about the employer

Suggestions for improvement

Bessere Kommunikation in der Öffentlichkeit

Career/Professional development

Es gibt eine interne Academy mit Leadership Trainings, Konferenzen, Lunch und Learnings, etc. Schwerpunkt sind aber Zertifikate

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.

What I like about the employer

What I dislike about the employer

If you honestly express your opinion and stand by it, you quickly find yourself on the chopping block. People are being laid off and locations are being opened elsewhere. Many are currently afraid for their jobs.

Suggestions for improvement

Existing employees should be treated with the same consideration as those who are being considered for new positions. Once you are in, you quickly realize that you are just a number.

What I like about the employer

What I like about the employer

What I dislike about the employer

- Using the crisis as an excuse, it feels like the company tries to save money on everything they can: no more money for team events, downgrade from Slack to Google Chat, no licenses for the software you actually need in your work. It all comes down as an understanding that things are getting worse
- Random single-day firing of people, so I always had a feeling I could be next
- Return to office policy did no good in my opinion: most of the meetings are online anyway, as we're working from different cities, managers aren't there a lot of time anyway, and lunches are not paid or even subsidised by the company, so it's just a waste of time and money for the employees
- Noticeable border between non-German developers and everybody else

Suggestions for improvement

If you want to save money on something, save it by making the office smaller and returning to work from home policy

Working atmosphere

It got much worse during the last years

Work-Life Balance

Introduction of office days made it much worse

Salary/Benefits

Salary will be good only if you managed to negotiate it from the beginning. Almost no bonuses apart from the sport subscription and a bike lease

Environmental and social responsibility

Not much apart from sorting garbage

Working conditions

If you like working from the office, it'll be good, but it can also be noisy during the office days

Communication

The communication between peers is usually very good, but gets worse the higher you go

Equality

Almost no women, non-whites or LGBTQ-people in managing roles

Interesting tasks

Heavily depends on the project, but I'm lucky to have them

What I like about the employer

What I dislike about the employer

methods and decisions of CEO and Director of HR, too much micromanagement.

Suggestions for improvement

be more transparent and talk to the people in your company

Working atmosphere

stressful, unthankful and only project managers get appreciated and get bonuses. everyone else just has to do his/her job

Image

Investing more money in image, than in their staff

Environmental and social responsibility

too short sighted and disrespectful.

Leadership behavior

disgusting. managers and project managers don't ask, they just demand.

Communication

instransparent. they always blame the bad economy or our workers, but never themselves

Salary/Benefits

bad salary and no chance to increase it, because the internal statistics are wrong. management is trying to measure progress, but the

Equality

everyone gets treated equally bad, except for managers. after some years of experience, I noticed that the goal isn't to have top talent, but only top managers and cheap work force.
So if you are a developer, you will get treated as bad as everyone else, who isn't a stakeholder

Interesting tasks

there were interesting projects, some years ago, but nowadays there is either no time, no budget or unrealistic demands for projects

What I like about the employer

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

Further training must be sought by the employee themselves, otherwise nothing will happen. In principle, this is a fair system, but it disadvantages employees for whom there are not much professional opportunities on the market.

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 like about the employer

What I dislike about the employer

Sometimes old and messy project handovers from other companies, but hey, they are not Appsfactory

Suggestions for improvement

Maybe more interesting and long term projects

What I like about the employer

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

Image

Very shiny from outside, completely disaster inside

Work-Life Balance

Depends on the project

Career/Professional development

Cost cutting so no training

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

What I dislike about the employer

Since they don't have any projects now, they are creating trouble for everyone so that people leave on their own. In yearly review my lead had 7 positive and 1 negative feedback (to which i replied with a reason and he agreed to it) but they still noted down the negative one to not give any raise. and if they wont find anything against you they'll hide themselves behind German language. ZERO BENEFITS. ZERO APPRECIATION. ZERO BONUSES. Typical third world business.

Suggestions for improvement

1. Listen and trust your people.
2. Treat human as human
3. Give fair compensation
4. Dont hide yourself behind baseless/bogus reviews
5. Be more reasonable

What I like about the employer

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.

Image

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

There used to be a 2 hour time frame for every employee to learn about new technologies and just keep up-to-date with tech changes.

This time frame got sneakily omitted years ago.

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".