The X-Team Universe (XTU) is our hub for everything awesome. It's where X-Teamers can attend our epic online events, complete quests designed to energize them, and exchange credits for unique X-Team collectibles.
This article will dive into each component of XTU, but before we do that, we first want to explain why we put so much effort into creating XTU and why we believe it's a critical component of the X-Team experience.
It's Our New Community Hub
X-Team is a fully remote company. We've always seen that as one of our key strengths. After all, when you hire from a global pool of talent, you'll find better talent than when you hire from a local pool of talent. Sourcing the best software engineers from anywhere in the world is how we've managed to keep growing over the last two decades.
But finding the best software engineers is only one part of the equation. The other part is keeping them. That requires a strong remote culture. But here's the thing about culture: While it may grow organically in an office (and even that's debatable), you have to be very intentional about building culture as a fully remote company.
For about a decade, we've used Slack as our community hub. It's where X-Teamers completed bounties and earned coins. But that's not what Slack is built for. It's a communication platform. Every time we wanted to do something unique or experimental for the X-Team community, we ran into limitations because of Slack.
Enter the X-Team Universe.
Developed from the ground up, XTU gives us the freedom to give the X-Team community the most unique online experiences they'll ever have in any remote company. While we still use Slack to communicate, XTU has become our new community hub.
Like Bounties, But Much Better
What we used to call Bounties on Slack are now called Quests on XTU. Our traditional Bounty system has received a massive upgrade. Before, you completed a Bounty and received a coin to spend in the Vault. We wanted to do so much more, but couldn't because of Slack's limitations.
XTU has eliminated that problem. It provides a fully gamified system where X-Teamers can complete Quests in exchange for experience points (XP) that level you up across a series of milestones. Every next level gives you Season Credits that you can spend in the Store for whatever Season we're currently in.
The Quests are divided into Collections appropriate to their topic. For example, the Entertainment Collection will have Quests related to, you guessed it, entertainment. The harder a Quest, the more XP you'll receive. Each Quest is designed to energize, motivate, or foster a sense of community among X-Teamers.
And that's really just the start of it. There's a Trophy Room for unique items that you'll gather as you're working your way through Quests, charity Quests where X-Team sends money to a charity if an X-Teamer completes the associated Quest, and Season-specific events that give X-Teamers other ways to earn XP and credits.
Find People Who Love What You Love
Clubs are another big element of XTU. Previously, we had Clubs on Slack where X-Teamers gathered around a particular topic. For example, there was a #club-books, a #club-lego, a #club-gaming, and many more. While these clubs worked reasonably well, they were never fully integrated with X-Team's other systems.
That has now changed. The growing number of Clubs on XTU each have Quests through which you can earn XP and Credits by sharing your thoughts and ideas about a topic you love.
Every Club is quite flexible in how it's set up. For example, X-Teamers in the Book Club choose a book every month they'd like to read together. The Quests are related to their reading progress and thoughts about the book. But another Club may work very differently. In essence, Clubs are a way to find a small group of X-Teamers who love a particular topic as much as you do.
Everyone Together Online
That's for the Quest side of XTU. Another part of XTU is the Theater. Every Season, we have several epic online events. These can be Season Launch Events, interviews, our annual X-Mas event, et cetera.
When we have one of these big events, we livestream it from the XTU Theater for everyone to watch together. There's a chat where X-Teamers can talk as they're watching it, making it an interactive experience in one single browser tab.
When we're not livestreaming anything, the XTU Theater will have whatever event we last streamed that's publicly available. Anyone can watch this, even if they're not an X-Teamer and don't have an XTU account. If that's you, visit the Theater today to check what we had on last.
No Longer Shackled by Slack
XTU is a work in progress that changes every week, but that's the whole point. We've dropped the shackles of Slack and now have a platform that we can use to build out our wildest ideas. All to strengthen the X-Team community and keep the best software engineers in the world as X-Teamers.
Are you an experienced software engineer who'd like to join X-Team? Create a profile on our Jobs platform and browse through the many remote roles we have available today.
