Chelsea, Melbourne Australia. Today, October 21, 2021, marks a milestone we have long anticipated celebrating at XWP. This month, XWP has crossed 100 XWPeople! Beyond the three-digit number, we’re thrilled about the positive impact that XWP has been able to make for our community, the clients we serve and the WordPress ecosystem that we belong to. We salute everyone who has been a part of our journey.
This seems like the right time to look back over the years and across the great people of XWP, celebrate where we came from and introduce you to the XWP of today. So here’s a look at some of the experiences and XWPeople that make us who we are now.
XWP’s remote agency roots go back more than 15 years, starting with XHTMLized in 2006. It all started with Dave Rosen’s vision for something different: a mission to deconstruct manmade political barriers and empower people no matter where they are born or where they come from. XWP is proud to represent XWPeople from 34 countries and six continents, comprising a rapidly growing global community of over 100 people. With folks from every corner of the world, inclusion is woven into the DNA of our community and it’s something we’re very proud of.
“Every person I’ve worked with at XWP has been extremely considerate and accommodating of each others’ time, schedules, and need for balance. Even when schedules are tough to align or the work intensifies, we always truly make each other’s wellbeing a priority. I think that care for our team elevates our work even more.”
Danielle Steussy
Product Owner, Australia, XWPerson since 2021
From the beginning, Dave and XWP rejected the notion that so-called “outsourcing” or “offshoring” and remote, distributed teams were one and the same. Still, XWP remains committed to finding the best people wherever they are, to treat them equally and pay them fairly. This approach massively impacts both XWPeople and our clients. Here’s how it feels to work with the XWP team, in the words of both clients and XWPeople:
‘I’m impressed with the quality of the people and their deep expertise in the WordPress ecosystem.
Gary Ballabio
VP Tech Partnerships at Cloudinary
“Our customers really appreciate XWP, they recognize the value that they receive is in the quality of the team. What I love about working at XWP is finding the next level for our customers. The opportunity for us to go beyond the project, beyond the expectation and to help them grow their business and achieve their goals.”
Sophia Carey
Sales Ops Coordinator, USA, XWPerson since 2021
XWP’s greatest strength has always been its people. We’re proud of the culture we’ve created and we know that having incredible folks on board is what brings that to life.
“I’m so thankful to be a part of XWP and for the chance to be in the room with some of the smartest folks I’ve known, and help solve interesting problems together. The projects we tackle, the teams we assemble, and the clients we take on are unique, challenging, and rewarding in so many ways.”
Joshua Wold,
Sr. Product Designer, USA, XWPerson since 2015
As a pioneer in the remote business world, there’s one element that Dave Rosen felt would set XWP apart: “From day one, it was about building trust and creating a community based on trust.” You won’t find activity monitoring software or spying in this workplace, just a clearly defined mission and dedicated people who make it happen.
“Trust and flexibility are the top qualities I value at XWP. They are part of the organization’s DNA and, frankly, I didn’t even realize their importance for a long time. After watching my friends struggling to ‘work remotely’ due to the pandemic, facing a lack of trust and being tied to a fixed schedule, I finally understood how fortunate I am.”
Piotr Delawski
Senior Engineer, Poland, XWPerson since 2014
In addition to the quality of our talent and culture, XWPeople also embrace the many opportunities to learn and grow. We’re grateful for the caliber of people who choose to work with XWP because we all learn from one another. Beyond this opportunity to learn from colleagues, XWP has a dedicated budget for every XWPerson to use for learning, growth and personal development. We call it Unleash+.
“I always knew XWP as a company specializing in performance. And, of course, I expected to gain exposure to many good practices and performance-related knowledge after joining. However, being a specialist in performance myself, what I did not expect — is to learn in just my first two months the amount of information that I would normally learn in 12 months on my own. Being a part of XWP is certainly challenging as the expectations for delivery are high, just as the complexity of the projects. But the challenge is what I enjoy the most about working with XWP.”
Sabrina Zeidan
Performance Engineer, Ukraine, XWPerson since 2021
“Our community is always seeking to expand our expertise and the impact we can make for our clients and the open web. Unleash+ enables each person engaged with XWP to access the growth support that is most meaningful and helpful to them. Beyond that, it helps us do those special things that recharge and energize us… visiting a new city, engaging in a hobby that we love, enhancing our working environment. It’s a powerfully personal way to enrich our lives.”
Tom Stinson
People & Culture Coordinator, Australia, XWPerson since 2020
We believe that creating shared experiences is what truly connects people. The people in our lives that we connect with shouldn’t only be in the workplace. Striking the right harmony between professional and personal experiences can be a major struggle for people in any workplace, remote or in person. We recognize every person has a real need to connect and creating the space for people to meet those needs and enjoy the experiences of life is a top priority for XWP.
“I really love working with XWP. For the first time, I work with a company that truly understands that I have a life outside of work, and sometimes that has to come first. Working with a company like this means I can produce my best work and fit work around my life.”
Jonny Harris
Senior Engineer, Architect, Great Britain, XWPerson since 2019
We think there’s something very special about what we’ve built here at XWP. Don’t just take our word for it. Here are a few more thoughts from XWPeople who wholeheartedly agree.
“I love coming to work with XWP everyday. There are a lot of great things about XWP but work-life balance stands out to me the most. The work-life balance with XWP is better than anywhere else I have ever worked.”
Adam Richards
Engineer, USA, XWPerson since 2021
“I was always a strong believer of the ‘grass isn’t greener on the other side,’ until I partnered with XWP. Here is a company that prides itself on work-life balance, feeling like a family, and providing the avenue to grow. I thought these were phrases that companies just threw into mission statements, but XWP believes in them and strives to exceed them. Making this switch in my career was the best decision, professionally and personally, I could have ever made.”
Caitlyn Sullivan
Senior Project Manager, USA, XWPerson since 2020
“It’s hard to describe in words the real feeling behind this experience. But if I need to pick one sentence, it would be “unbelievably awesome.”After 15 years working with companies from at least four different countries, with different sizes, you start to believe you know what the patterns of the industry are. You believe you know what a good/bad company, a good/bad project, a good/bad client, a good/bad… job, is. And it was so good to learn that I was totally wrong.” Source
Fernando Tessman
Senior Engineer, Canada, XWPerson since 2021
“What surprised me most when I joined XWP was the community. By the time I joined XWP, I had been working remotely for many years, and I thought XWP would be just another contract. Within the first few weeks, I noticed XWP was different. It’s partly that XWP ‘gets’ remote work and makes process and communication easy. The real difference though is the people, and the strong culture of respect, inclusion, and teamwork. That culture is so strong, that I’ve seen it raise the bar not only for new people that join the XWP community, but for clients and client teams as well.”
Anne Louise Currie
Sr. Product Owner & Sr QA., Canada, XWPerson since 2016
“Working with XWP feels to me like being in an extended family – you bring your own perspective, collaborate and share with other members, trust your teammates to have your back and grow together – not by winning every game, but making mistakes, learning from them, balancing our personal time and life commitments. Always keeping our clients/end-users top of mind when we have to make hard decisions.”
Kamalesh Kalarickal
Sr. QA Engineer, India, XWPerson since 2020
“Since working at XWP, the aspect I’ve been most impressed with has been it’s work-life harmony. My wife and I currently travel month-to-month across the world; so being able to work remote is something that was very important to me. Since XWP employs people from six different continents, across most time zones, I’ve had no issues with collaboration or support. XWP has given my family the flexibility to follow our dreams, wherever they may take us.”
Logan Wisniewski
Engineer USA, XWPerson since 2021
Thank you to all who have joined in the journey of building our many evolutions: From our early days as XHTMLized in 2006 through our current formation as XWP, part of a whole family of organizations in X-Company. Through these many seasons, we’ve brought innovation, growth and strength, and we couldn’t have done it without the many incredible XWPeople and partnerships over the years. Here’s to the next 100 XWPeople!
