15 Years at XING: Reflections and a Farewell

I was laid off last week from XING (New Work SE) after 15 years working as a software engineer. This was the fifth round of layoffs since 2020, leading to a significant number of job losses. In Germany, 39% of employees, including those who resigned, either left or were forced to leave the company. This also affected 21% of employees in Austria, 34% in Spain, and 35% in Portugal.

This time felt different not only because I was affected, but also because nearly all engineering in Germany was eliminated. In my cluster of 42 people, fewer than 10 remain. Entire teams that formerly worked on system-critical infrastructure or the platform’s foundations were let go.

The termination email arrived five minutes after the meeting, and the paperwork was in my mailbox thirty minutes later, delivered by a courier. My final interview with a fatigued HR representative and the VP of Engineering lasted fifteen minutes and could have been an email.

I have always loved XING as an employer; it was the best company I have worked for so far. It had an excellent culture, great people, a strong spirit, and high professionalism. Working at XING meant being at the forefront of technology. Regardless of the library, development pattern, database, or deployment method, we consistently used industry standards similar to those of major players like Google and Microsoft. While I was the top performer at my previous company, at XING, I collaborated with many individuals who were far more skilled than I am.

I thought it would be a good time to reflect on and remember the past 15 years.

The Contrast: Hell on Earth vs. Human Culture

When a former frontend architect reached out to me in 2010, he was bored in the hospital and browsing interesting profiles on XING. At that time, I was in a difficult situation. My previous company felt like hell on earth. Working there was even worse than being at the company depicted in the TV show “Stromberg,” the German version of “The Office.” The workplace was hostile, with a depressing and toxic culture. I once saw my boss crying as she left her superior’s office. The company was located in a bleak industrial area in the west of Hamburg, next to an Autobahn.

My team was made up of unqualified individuals, and hostility and bullying were common. The offices were dreary, featuring smelly carpets, beige desks, and brown chairs. Few employees received salary increases, and most were significantly underpaid. I received only one salary increase of €200 during my time at the company, and I had to schedule an appointment with the deputy managing director to discuss it. When I entered his office, a dimly lit room with leather furnishings, a mahogany desk, and bookshelves that resembled a royal chamber, he asked me to sit. The chair was much lower than his imposing table, making it feel as though I was sitting before a throne. He continued working for ten minutes while ignoring me before finally removing his glasses and asking smugly, “So, you think you deserve more than what we pay? Why is that?” I then spent another ten minutes trying to convince him of my worthiness for a salary increase.

I was thrilled when the frontend architect organized a meeting. I didnt need to send my CV. It was a Friday, and I brought a printed copy. I had an hour-long meeting with HR, followed by an intense session with three or four frontend architects who asked me various questions about web development.

After the meeting, I left, and later that evening, while grocery shopping, I received a call from the frontend team leader offering me a job. When he said, “Everything looks promising, but we need to discuss your salary request,” I thought, “Damn, I asked for too much, and now they will try to lower it.” However, he surprised me by saying, “You are asking for too little; we will add another €500 to your requested salary.” That was my first impression of XING.

After my previous company received my resignation letter, the atmosphere changed dramatically. The first action taken was to block access to xing.com for all employees through the firewall. Additionally, I was denied the Christmas gift that every employee received each year—a frozen duck—out of spite, claiming it was only for those still employed the following year. I left the company before Christmas and began my first day at XING on January 3, 2011.

2011: Entering the “Star” Phase

On my first day, I received a warm welcome at the front desk on the first floor of a building at Gänsemarkt in Hamburg. XING occupied three floors and employed just over 300 people, creating a lively atmosphere. I began my journey during the “star” product phase of XING. The previous CEO and founder, Lars Hinrichs, had left in 2007, marking the end of the “baby” phase of the product. Stefan Groß-Selbeck took over, bringing charisma and suitability for this product phase. I also met some members of the previous leadership team, who were gradually transitioning out.

It took some time to find a table, so I initially sat in the corridor. People buzzed around like in an agency. The walls were adorned with cards, product prints, and concepts. I was hired during XING’s largest relaunch to date, which involved a complete redesign and a new concept, including an activity stream featuring stories about jobs and people. They didn’t even have a computer for me, so I used an old iMac for one or two weeks that had been used at a fair.

For the next three weeks, I worked in the office of the frontend architects, a team of four or five highly skilled JavaScript experts. I had to tackle several challenging tasks under supervision.

After I finished my onboarding, I was assigned to my first team: the jobs team. This team consisted of nine members: three backend Ruby on Rails engineers, one frontend engineer (me), one QA engineer, one UX designer, one agile coach, and one product manager. The team was easygoing and funny, and we even had access to a room with a sofa for relaxation. I had never worked with Scrum or Kanban before, and I was unfamiliar with Ruby on Rails and the template language ERB. My JavaScript skills were basic, primarily focused on jQuery. The product managers changed frequently as new teams needed to be staffed. We worked tirelessly on the relaunch and completed it in mid-2011.

XING was known for its incredible parties and fantastic offsite events over the years. In 2011, we hosted a summer party in Zum Alten Lotsenhaus at Elbstrand beach, featuring a costume theme of “maritime.” Attendees dressed as pirates, fish, sailors, and officers, enjoying delicious food and plenty of drinks. Alcohol is so integral to XING that several internal products bear beer-related names.

The same year, I attended my first conference. Although I had previously traveled to France on business trips with my first company, I had never flown to another country solely to listen to tech talks. A group of four or five frontend engineers from Hamburg flew to Amsterdam to participate in the Fronteers conference. We stayed in a nice hotel, and the conference took place at the Tuschinski Theatre. We observed a moment of silence when the news of Steve Jobs’ death was announced and had the opportunity to meet the founder of jQuery.

We visited the city, including Amsterdam’s red-light district and a few coffee shops. One of my co-workers had a distinct “stoner” look, which led to him being offered various drugs on the street; a man approached him asking, “Cocaine?” Later, at the airport, this same co-worker was strip-searched by security.

We held our Christmas party at FABRIK Hamburg, where everyone wore Wild West costumes. This year was very successful, with a 34% growth in vertical segments. As a thank you for the successful relaunch of the platform, every employee received a €200 Amazon voucher.

2012: The “Cash Cow” Era Begins

In 2012, I participated in my first Prototyping Days. It was a three-day event where the entire company worked in teams to develop prototypes. At the end of the week, the ideas were presented at Restaurant Leuchtturm near Harburger Stadtpark, winners were selected, and the summer party was celebrated.

XING was successful, with the stock price rising from €55 in 2011 to €70 in 2012. Burda Digital increased its stake, triggering a mandatory takeover offer for the remaining shares. I recall seeing various Burda print magazines laid out in the office for free during this time. I only managed to get one issue of Playboy; it was gone within minutes each time.

Thomas Vollmöller became CEO in October 2012 and initiated the company’s “cash cow” phase.

2013-2014: Growing Pains and New Spaces

XING was growing rapidly, and one company after another vacated the building, allowing us to take over the floors. Within one or two years, we rented all the floors in two consecutive buildings. Initially, we had ample space, including a yoga room, but it soon became crowded. The native mobile team was established, and the yoga room had to be repurposed. XING quickly ran out of space and needed to rent two or three additional offices around the city to accommodate specific business units. The Jobs team had to relocate to temporary offices next to a dental office due to a significant breakthrough created between the two buildings, facilitating movement between them.

Next to our office, a new building was constructed, causing significant noise and stress for nearly a year. I remember some developers climbing over the balconies at the construction site and stealing some helmets. Those helmets were passed around the company for years, complete with a working blue light attached to the top. As we watched the construction site daily, we joked, “Wouldnt it be funny if we moved into that building?” And that’s precisely what happened. In April 2013, we moved into a brand-new, modern building with open-plan offices. Everything looked nice and clean; the carpet and additional room dividers ensured the noise level was acceptable. We had kitchens, special rooms with a motto, a large company event room, and a parking garage. Every employee received a lime green beach towel embossed with the XING logo, and a few bottles of orange juice as a welcome gift.

The building was located next to the Hamburg Opera, where I could hear the singers training for years. I observed auditions behind a curtain as singers showcased their talent.

Around that time, the e-recruiting business relocated to Barcelona, Spain. I had the choice to either move to Spain or switch teams. I decided to switch teams for the first time, moving from the Jobs team to the Mobile Web team. We developed the mobile version of XING, a highly efficient and fast alternative for mobile devices. Additionally, we began working on a hybrid iPad app featuring a new concept of an opportunity stream filled with data and recommendations. The team consisted of brilliant developers, and I started using Vim as my coding editor since everyone else used it as well.

In September 2013, we held our second Prototyping Days, and this time I was on the winning team. We developed XING screencasts, a concept aimed at teaching people how to use the platform. The following summer party took place at Planten un Blomen, featuring an illuminated water and light show at night.

In October, I flew to the Fronteers Conference in Amsterdam. We stayed at a beautiful hotel near a river, which served freshly baked bread every morning. We explored the city center, enjoyed a Wagyu burger at Burger Bar, and had dinner at an authentic Chinese restaurant. I still remember the disgusted look on my co-worker’s face when he realized that the duck he ordered was steamed and had slimy, soft skin.

The year was very successful for XING; it acquired Kununu, an employer review platform, for approximately €10 million, establishing an office in Vienna and adding Austria as a location.

I continued working for the mobile web team until the end of 2013, when it was dissolved due to the rise of native mobile platforms and the availability of usable iOS and Android apps. My boss was reluctant to let the position go, so in 2014, I was assigned to different teams as a helper. I spent six months on the Communities team, developing a backend interface for group products. Thereafter, I was assigned to the XWS team, which was responsible for the public and internal XING APIs. I found this topic uninteresting, as API programming seems boring to me. Following that, I worked with the content team on newsletters for a month. I disliked this year without a dedicated team, but my boss refused to relinquish the position.

We held Prototyping Days in the summer of 2014 and celebrated the summer party at Beach Hamburg, a fantastic venue with halls filled with sand and water.

In September, I took a train to Freiburg am Breisgau to attend the Smashing Conference. I met several of my web idols, whose books on CSS, HTML, and JavaScript I have at home.

2015-2016: The Growth Cluster & The SEO Years

On January 1st, I finally joined a new team, the newly established SEO team. Initially, it consisted of just the SEO manager and me, but we later added two backend engineers, a junior product manager, and a QA engineer. Our task was to ensure that the logged-out pages of XING were crawlable and machine-readable. I learned a great deal about structured data, microformats, and schema markup. I wasn’t fond of the extensive “fencing” we had to implement, which involved restricting visibility for non-paying members, adding pop-up modals with upsell offers, and randomly sorting content to prevent it from being stolen by scrapers, among other measures.

The SEO team was part of the Growth cluster, which included teams focused on expanding XING. This cluster comprised the login team, onboarding team, newsletter team, SEO team, and other teams. For many years, we consistently increased traffic and membership by 20% or more each year.

Our team won the SEMY Award, the search marketing prize of 2015.

We had a cluster offsite in the summer, spending several days at Herrenhaus Gut Bliestorf. The experience included delicious food and team events such as archery and stock fighting sessions.

In June, I joined a sketchnotes workshop that a co-worker organized at the company, and I still enjoy sketching to this day.

We had one of the biggest Prototyping Days I have ever attended at XING this summer. A stand-up comedian was hired to perform, and we enjoyed T-shirt painting and Taiko drum sessions. The entire company participated in a drum polonaise on the rooftop, making sure the whole city could hear our music and drums. I was on the winning team, and each member received a brand-new Apple Watch (Model 0) as the prize. We couldn’t believe we won such a valuable reward.

We held our Christmas party at Gruenspan in St. Pauli. Each year, finding a party location for our growing employee count became more challenging. This time, the costume theme was the 80s.

The year was a significant success. XING experienced steady growth in both membership and revenue, shifting its focus to improvements in the mobile app. The stock price rose to €160. XING launched its own journalistic team and publication, XING News/Klartext, led by Roland Tichy. I recall meeting him a few times in the coffee kitchen since our clusters shared the same space.

XING also acquired lebenslauf.com for a few million. I still remember the scandal when the two founders, who sold their first app—an app that could probably be vibe-coded with AI today in just two days by one person—celebrated the sale by eating sushi off naked women.

In April 2016, we reached 10 million premium subscriptions and celebrated with a 2-meter-wide cake. A new office for e-recruiting opened in the Kaisergalerie. We were all envious; although the main office still looked nice, the new office featured a much better design and layout.

Revenues increased by 24%, making XING the leading network in German-speaking markets. The stock value closed at €180, reaching a high of €200 in 2016.

2017: The Peak – Mallorca & The Party Era

In 2017, Thomas Vollmöller fulfilled his promise. Two years earlier, he had pledged a large company offsite if we achieved specific goals, and we did. Thus began the biggest party and offsite I have ever attended. Newer employees still envy those of us who participated.

Nearly 1,000 company employees were flown from various locations to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on private planes. Although it was January, which likely lowered costs, the operation was still a logistical masterpiece. From Hamburg alone, six rented planes departed with employees for the kickoff.

We booked two or three hotels near the event location, Palau de Congressos de Palma. After the initial kick-off, we rode by bus on the first day to Cova Galdent, a party venue inside natural stone caves. It was a magical place, but the food was insufficient. I remember my co-worker was starving, as all we received were appetizers. However, the lighting and atmosphere of the location were enchanting.

Every location was a secret, and they didn’t reveal it until we arrived. On the second day, the party location was even more exciting. We were driven for half an hour across the island to Son Termes Finca, a large, historic Spanish finca on a mountain. The setting was incredible, featuring old fireplaces, stone walls, colorful lighting, fire pots, Mariachi musicians, paella pans, homemade burgers, Iberian ham, and suckling pig. The variety of food at all the locations was astonishing.

The next morning, most people were severely hungover. Some were still drunk when we flew home, resulting in a miserable day. I, on the other hand, do not drink alcohol, so I was up at 7 a.m. I hiked up the mountain to Castell de Bellver, an old castle overlooking Palma de Mallorca. It opened when I arrived, and I climbed the towers, visited the museum with Roman statues, and enjoyed a magnificent view of Palma de Mallorca and the sea.

We had another offsite with the Growth cluster in July 2017 at the same Herrenhaus Gut Bliestorf location. However, this time it rained so heavily that everyone got soaked to the bone. The event manager had planned many outdoor activities, including a scavenger hunt and raft building, all in the pouring rain.

We had several team events this year, as we have in previous years. As revenues increased, the budget for these events increased. Eventually, each team could participate in events every quarter, including a visit to an upscale restaurant afterward.

I believe I’ve experienced nearly every escape room in Hamburg, including the one on the ship Rickmer Rickmers. I’ve played neon golf twice, enjoyed billiards and archery, played Poker at the Casino Esplanade, participated in LaserTag at Tilta, and had burgers and schnitzel at least ten times in upscale restaurants.

XING acquired Prescreen International and InterNations, expanding to Munich. The stock value rose to €250, and we received one share per person as a gift. In 2017, XING opened a tech hub in Porto, and Roland Tichy resigned as the publisher of Klartext in January.

At the end of the year, I switched teams, leaving the SEO team to join the onboarding team.

2018-2019: Toxic Leadership and a New Challenge

In 2018, I collaborated with a team of skilled developers to create a new onboarding process. The work was quite complicated, involving different processes for various users. If I recall correctly, we had over 20 distinct onboarding paths. We also used React for the first time as a JavaScript library. Previously, all frontend development had been done with Ruby on Rails, using ERB as the template language and jQuery for additional functionality. We incorporated Redux as well, and I remember feeling overwhelmed by the complex overengineering and new patterns at that time.

XING launched HalloFreelancer as an in-house project based on an idea that a small innovation team and I developed a few years ago during an innovation week: Freelancer Marketplace. The initial product failed because the newly formed team responsible for implementing our prototype was too small and lacked sufficient support.

XING experienced rapid growth during these years. I joined the recruiting process for a chance to be promoted to senior engineer. I conducted up to two hiring interviews each week, reviewed coding challenges, and we consistently hired new employees in all locations.

We celebrated our Christmas party at Prototyp—Das Automuseum. Each year, our summer, and Christmas parties grew larger. I missed some locations and didn’t attend every party. One year, we rented a large area by the Elbe River, and another time, we booked the entire Mojo Club on the Reeperbahn.

2019 was one of the most stressful years for me at XING. It began with a pleasant kickoff at the Grand Elise Rotherbaum. In August, we had a great offsite with the Growth cluster at the Ellernhof Hotel, a farm. We went bowling, had a barbecue, saw horses and chickens, used a climbing park in the trees, and enjoyed the sunny weather.

The onboarding team needed to complete an important product quickly. To achieve this, two teams, totaling 14 members, were combined: my previous SEO team and the onboarding team. This new group included 5 backend engineers, 2 frontend engineers, 3 QA engineers, 2 product managers, one UX designer, and a newly hired team lead.

The project succeeded, but it came at a significant cost. The manager pressured the team to achieve success, leading to constant conflicts among the backend developers, with people crying and shouting at each other. The boss was highly toxic and the worst team leader I have encountered in my 15 years at XING. His 360-degree leadership feedback session was the most brutal and horrifying meeting I have ever attended. He faced harsh criticism, and some developers did not hold back. The entire team fell apart, and nearly everyone left the company or the team afterward. XING had to completely restaff the team. The manager was let go. One toxic developer was promoted to SiteOps, where he had less human contact, while the others quit. One of the QAs and a designer left the company, and one product manager found a new team. As a final recommendation, one of our leaving developers suggested I check the internal job board. This led me to discover that a brand-new design system team was forming. I applied, got the job, and received my Senior title.

I attended a second offsite, this time for the XIF, the XING Interfaces & Foundations cluster. The event took place at a beautiful lake in the cozy hotel, Bokel-Mühle am See. It featured a fantastic breakfast, a room with a fireplace, a barbecue, and a buffet. We also enjoyed walking around the lake. Although I wasn’t officially part of the cluster yet, I was invited to join to meet the team.

After being burned by previous experiences with a failed design system, the company invested in proper staffing to create the brand-new XING Design System (XDS). Previously, they had hired only one UI engineer and one designer, with most work handled by the Frontend Architecture team. The old design system grew rapidly, leading teams to constantly add and request new components. It soon became unmaintainable, featuring duplications such as four different accordion components and poor documentation.

This time, it was different. The team consisted of four designers, including two principal designers. The product manager was the UX director, and there was a capable frontend architect serving as the engineering team lead. Additionally, there was a QA position and two developers for each platform: Web, Android, and iOS. The staffing was incomplete from the outset, and freelancers assisted with Android until the team was fully staffed. From the beginning, the team worked professionally, creating spec sheets for each component. Initially, the development process was relatively chaotic, and some developers from other teams helped build components.

XING had a very successful year and was reaffirmed as New Work SE, consolidating all the brands under one parent organization. In April, Honeypot, a specialized IT job platform, was acquired for €57 million, and a new location was opened in Berlin. The stock price rose to €280 by the end of the year. Thomas Vollmöller stepped down as CEO.

We had another Christmas party, this time at the Fischauktionshalle on the Fischmarkt. It was the last big company party I attended at XING.

2020: The Pandemic & The Empty Harbor

XING decided to relocate and kept the new building a secret for a long time. In 2020, they announced that they had found a new location: the former Unilever building in HafenCity. Everyone was stunned. This building is one of the largest and most architecturally interesting in HafenCity. It has the capacity to accommodate around 4,000 people, while we already had 2,000 employees at that time.

Petra von Strombeck was appointed CEO in late May, unaware that she would soon enter the “poor dog” phase of the business cycle.

The beginning of the year was especially hard for me when I developed an eye condition that damaged my retina and caused fluid to accumulate in my eye. This was likely related to the stress I experienced in 2019 and the changes within my team. The condition is colloquially known as “manager sickness” because it mostly affects men in their 40s who are under high stress. I was very sensitive to light for a few months and couldn’t tolerate bright office lighting. Although my condition improved, I was left with permanent retinal damage that distorts my vision.

COVID-19 hit in March, and we were all sent home. The IT team had to work overtime to transform New Work SE into a remote company. They installed VPNs, implemented chat solutions, and introduced a remote meeting structure. It was the worst possible time, as we had a brand new building waiting for renovation and opening, but no one was allowed to go to the office due to lockdowns.

In July 2020, we were allowed to visit the shell construction of the Unilever building, where all carpets, furniture, electrical systems, and lighting had been removed. The building has six floors, with the first floor open to the public. A dedicated team and an architect designed the building. The new office, named New Work Harbour, features a nautical theme throughout its design. Meeting rooms resemble containers, and meeting boxes mimic the wooden parts of boats. The most intriguing aspect is the design of the sixth floor, which includes a roof terrace. Multiple teams collaborated on design concepts for the various rooms on this unique floor. We created creative zones, experiment labs, a library, a fireplace room, a lounge area, a speaker area, a welcome area, and walls that you could write on with chalk. The furniture was modern, expensive, innovative, and fireproof. I participated in a team that designed an agile room with mobile furniture and writable walls. Each section included movable stations equipped with televisions and cameras for remote meetings. We officially moved into the building in September 2020, but it was never fully occupied. Some people were unable to enter due to being unvaccinated, and the constant masking and testing were frustrating, leading most to work from home.

Productivity increased, particularly among engineers, with a 25% boost. No one would have thought before that concentration or silence might be necessary for programming.

The pandemic affected the company, causing its stock price to decline to €260, and the first layoff occurred in Q4 2020.

2021-2022: The Design System Maturity

2021 saw significant leadership changes. While it’s common for a new CEO to bring in new personnel, this time many C-level positions were eliminated and assumed by the CEO. Consequently, the CPO and CMO had to leave the company.

I concentrated on my team and the success of the design system rather than on company politics. After two years of development, the Design System became stable and mature, featuring over 50 components. The designers had professional spec sheets in Figma and documentation in a product guide. Meanwhile, we developers created a documentation platform with code examples, API tables, live demos, and additional examples. We migrated the web code to TypeScript and Styled Components. We automated the export of variables such as colors, spacing, and motion, along with icons, illustrations, and images. This allowed designers to add or change assets, with automatic releases for Web, iOS, and Android. We had a palette colors, semantic colors, hundreds of icons, and numerous beautiful illustrations created by a talented illustrator who later joined our team.

Most work was done remotely, and COVID-19 continued to impact revenue. The stock closed at €240 at the end of the year.

In 2022, as the pandemic began to fade, the company made several attempts to bring employees back to the office. They introduced rules, such as requiring attendance once a week or twice a month, but most people ignored these guidelines. After two years of working from home, many were reluctant to return to the old work model. This model was problematic, as team members were located in different places, with some in one room and others in separate rooms in Portugal or Spain, leading to communication breakdowns in a mixed setting. The company switched from Slack to Microsoft Teams, which immediately resulted in decreased communication.

Our team focused on training and promoting the adoption of the design system while continuously creating new components as needed. Additionally, we developed applications to measure the success of this adoption. I created a web app that cloned over 40 Git repositories and ran a scanner application on each codebase to count the usage of each component. The data, along with figures from iOS, Android, and Figma, were displayed as charts in a React frontend application. This allowed us to see in meticulous detail how many components each team used in every product.

Additionally, I created a Google Chrome browser extension that displays all XING Design System components with a green border and their names, making it clear when a team has created a custom component.

One web developer from the Design System team left the company, and her position was not filled. I took on the responsibilities of two developers for over two years.

Our cluster held an onsite event in Hamburg after travel restrictions were lifted. The event included a harbor tour and a party in a small cabin, Wartehäuschen Döns. The declining revenue was evident in smaller venues and finger food instead of large buffets.

2023: The Recession Hits

New Work SE had a total of 8 locations at that time: Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Barcelona, Valencia, and Porto.

The company continued to lose money due to the post-COVID recession. Printing a trillion euros and shutting down all nuclear power not only devastated the industry, which declined by 20%, but also impacted the job market and recruitment solutions. The stock price fell to €150, and layoffs occurred in Q1.

The Design System team worked on implementing dark mode for the platform. We created illustrations specifically for dark mode, using CSS custom properties to switch colors while maintaining the same illustration files. By the end of the year, we successfully launched dark mode. The project required significant effort from every team, as it necessitated the adoption of the design system. Interfaces that had not yet been migrated still flashed bright white in dark mode.

2024: The Beginning of the End

2024 was another difficult year, marked by two rounds of layoffs in spring and winter. The company offered a voluntary leaver program, and many employees chose to leave. I was not permitted to do so. In August 2024, the company was delisted, and I had to sell my stock to Burda for €65, a significant drop from its previous value of nearly €375.

In 2020, the web platform team had started creating a web mono repository to consolidate all frontend applications into one location. In 2024, I began transferring the entire design system into that mono repository, improving both documentation and code in the process.

Onlyfy was restructured, resulting in a significant number of employee layoffs. Our team acquired two survivors from that layoff, who brought along two additional design systems for us to manage moving forward.

2025: The Final Countdown

Henning Rönneberg was appointed CFO and COO in February. In May, Petra von Strombeck handed over the CEO role to Rönneberg. Despite the significant layoffs, the company continued to lose substantial revenue, and everyone anticipated another round of layoffs.

Our team took over the accessibility initiative and led the project management to meet the mid-year deadline for the European Accessibility Act. We introduced high contrast mode, accessible motion, keyboard navigation, ARIA roles, labels, and much more. It was a challenging project, but we delivered on time. Additionally, the web platform team built a dashboard to monitor the platform’s stability, accessibility, and other factors.

Throughout the year, the Design System team continued to build components for all focus projects. We created seven new components and enhanced four existing ones.

In late October, XING announced another round of layoffs for the end of the year, and everyone waited for one and a half months. The company went quiet, and jokes circulated when team requests came in: “We’ll do this and that if we still exist next year as a team.” I migrated a few apps to the cloud and completed the task two days before the layoffs. The board was empty, as no one requested new components or showed interest in starting new projects.

Epilogue: Gratitude and Next Steps

To be honest, I didn’t expect to be fired. I was uncertain about the future of the design system, but I thought there was only a slight chance of losing my job. A friend, who had also been with the company for a long time, joked, “We will close the doors here.” However, things turned out differently. XING removed nearly all development from German locations and let go of nearly everyone who created and maintained the mono repository, the infrastructure, and all the foundations used by every team to develop products. Starting in January, the remaining engineers, mostly in Porto, Barcelona, and Valencia, will receive an OpenAI Codex license to compensate for our lost knowledge.

All that remains is looking back to remember the good times. I don’t look back in anger; XING was the best company I worked for, with the most skilled people I have encountered in my life. I wouldn’t have stayed for so long if things had been different. I’m sure the XING Design System is one of the best design systems in Europe, perhaps even beyond. When I last reviewed all the documentation, spec sheets, and product guides, I noticed that our designers are truly skilled and innovative. Whether it’s the challenging Superellipse profile image, which can be soon built natively with CSS in all browsers, or the bold colors and animations, along with the cool illustrations, icons, and stickers, our work stands out. Building a custom design system rather than merely theming an existing component library makes a significant difference. To all the developers, designers, QAs, and product managers I’ve worked with over the past 15 years, I extend a heartfelt thank you for all the learning experiences and projects we’ve built together.

XING will move out of the New Work Harbour office at the end of the year, and Kununu will become its own company. I returned my notebook and iPhone, and when my access to the infrastructure is revoked on January 1st, 2026, I will close this chapter of my life.

I will take a break for 1 or 2 months. My garden leave lasts until mid-2026, so I will look for a new challenge and opportunity in spring. If you know of an interesting company, product, or service that requires strong Web UI development skills, particularly in React and TypeScript, along with 25 years of professional CSS experience, experience in Design, and an eye for beautiful layouts, please let me know.