Where have you been looking? Examples of companies hiring freelancers at those rates are T-Labs, ImmobilienScout, eBay and HERE.
Berlin is actually lower than other regions that have higher cost of living (Frankfurt, Stuttgart, München) so it's not about competing with London.
Check out http://gulp.de/. They have a regular survey among their users with a good breakdown by location, experience and the type of work the freelancers do. You can also browse profiles there or project listings on http://etengo.de.
Not really. These are big companies, not hysteric startups where everyone works 12 hours a day, deluding themselves that they get more done that way (dunno how common that is with Berlin startups TBH).
Personally I am much less stressed out doing corporate contracting than I was with the shitty freelance work I did before, subcontracting with web agencies that haggle about every hour.
This is how my rate developed over the years:
* 50 DM/h working for a great agency as a student (that was in 2000)
* 15 €/h working for an agency as a student (Yep, I was dense enough to take a paycut. Didn't even occur to me to ask for at least 25. So much facepalming...)
* 30 €/h working for the same agency when I decided to do freelancing full-time
* 30 €/h, then 40 €/h working for a small software company (First time I got to 40 hours a week of billable time. I was swimming in money! ;)
* 45 €/h working for another agency (iOS development)
* 50 €/h first contracting gig at $BIGCORP (160 hours a month - 8000€)
* 65 €/h second contracting gig at $BIGCORP2 (which is where I still am, 160+ hours a month - > 10k)
* 65 €/h working for a friend with a product idea (only a few hours, far from full-time)
* a few fixed-price projects in between, most of them were a desaster, one was decent
Regarding "wasteful"; It's supply and demand. For some reason the capitalism game works much better in contracting than with permanent jobs in Germany. I think part of it is that employees are so hard to get rid of and the overhead is high (~40%?).
Since I can't edit it, let me try again to make a bullet list (srsly?):
* 50 DM/h working for a great agency as a student (that was in 2000)
* 15 €/h working for an agency as a student (Yep, I was dense enough to take a paycut. Didn't even occur to me to ask for at least 25. So much facepalming...)
* 30 €/h working for the same agency when I decided to do freelancing full-time
* 30 €/h, then 40 €/h working for a small software company (First time I got to 40 hours a week of billable time. I was swimming in money! ;)
* 45 €/h working for another agency (iOS development)
* 50 €/h first contracting gig at $BIGCORP (160 hours a month - 8000€)
* 65 €/h second contracting gig at $BIGCORP2 (which is where I still am, 160+ hours a month - > 10k)
* 65 €/h working for a friend with a product idea (only a few hours, far from full-time)
* a few fixed-price projects in between, most of them were a desaster, one was decent
The first one through a contracting agency/recruiter (aka pimp), namely Hays. The second one through my personal network. For that I am still going through a consulting company as a subcontractor, just because that was the quickest way to do it.
There are tons more pimps like Computer Futures and in Germany Gulp and Etengo. Just sign up on their website, upload your CV and expect to get spammed with every contract they have to fill.
Searching for them in GMail, I just noticed that many project descriptions are in German, even if the job itself only requires English. They are very formulaic so it shouldn't be too much of a problem if you don't speak German.
Here's an example of one in English:
I am looking for a Frontend Developer for a very well-known exciting client of mine .
Location: Berlin
Start: 01.09.2016
Lengths: 3 Months ++
Technical skills (please also reply, even if some technologies are not part of your skillset):
* Advanced JavaScript knowledge including modern JS libraries such as React and jQuery
* Interacting with REST API backends via Ajax or WebSockets
* Template engines, such as JSX or Closure Templates
* Automated testing, unit tests with Jasmine & Karma, UI tests with Selenium Webdriver
* HTML 5, including HTML 5 APIs such as Local Storage & History
* CSS3, including pre-processors like LESS or SASS Experience with responsive web design
* Experience with package managers like npm and Bower Build pipelines with Grunt, Gulp or webpack
* Ideally ext.js experience
* Team-based collaboration, including pair programing & code reviews
* Agile software development with techniques such as Kanban
* Working co-located within an integrated, cross-functional team
* Close collaboration with user experience & product management experts
* Distributed version control, Git or Mercurial
* Lean & data-driven mindset, including analytics review & A/B testing
* Familiar with tools & systems like Jira, Jenkins, Confluence, GitHub, Gitorious, Gerrit
* Optional: Performance optimization tactics at build-time, run-time, & server-side
Sounds interesting? Please send your CV and your hourly rate to redacted@example.com. If you know anybody who wants to do this role, please forward the project description.
Check out http://gulp.de/. They have a regular survey among their users with a good breakdown by location, experience and the type of work the freelancers do. You can also browse profiles there or project listings on http://etengo.de.