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Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full
by ogou 2mo ago
Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full stack developer would be fortunate to get 90-95k euro annually. That is plenty of money if you intend to stay in Berlin, but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Also, housing is a huge problem there and it can take 6 months to find even a basic flat. I am an American developer that lived there for many years and my co-workers were usually Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, Russian, Lebanese, and now Indian. It was rare to find an actual German coder.
I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.
- fransje26 2mo ago> 90-95k euro annually. [..] but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Nice disconnect from reality. 90k is more than twice the median income in Germany, and by extension, more than twice the median income of most European countries.
- garbawarb 2mo agoWhere do the German coders go though?
- fallingbananna 2mo agoAFAIK a lot of the highly skilled German emigrants go to Switzerland.
- Tade0 2mo agoThe question should be "where did they go?" - to Switzerland, years ago already. How do I know? I've met them there. My project of close to 40 people was over 80% German. Contractors overall were mainly German as well. And it makes huge sense - in the German part language is largely the same where it matters and salaries are much better. Also there aren't nearly enough Swiss programmers to fill all the positions. If I were German, I would be in Zürich right now, admiring its hideous bare concrete 20-21st century architecture.
- aleph_minus_one 2mo ago> Where do the German coders go though? Currently the market for software developers is very complicated in Germany. Basically, the answer is: if you have a job, you stay there (at least until hopefully in a few years the job market situation for software developers in Germany improves).
- zanderwohl 2mo agoIt's much the same in other countries.
- thi2 2mo agoYour first sentence is a bold claim considering the current state of the housing market
- elric 2mo ago90-95k would be impossibly high in Belgium, which is but a stone's throw away from Germany. If that isn't enough money to save, you're doing something very wrong, or your idea of a cheap city might differ from mine.