[doczoidberg]

don't forget that there are strong cooperations and they know their talents better than outsiders. They know who is how much worth.

[Matthias247]

Not really. In the german automotive industry there are no real exceptional salaries for engineers, it's pretty much regulated through IG Metall and everybody is earning the same in a +-15% range. That means these companies typically don't offer engineers awesome salaries in order to retain them, doesn't matter how good they are at their stuff. The only exception is (non-technical) management.

[ptbello]

true, but this kind of information will eventually leak; job title and basic insider knowledge can take you quite far already