[ChuckNorris89]

Germany's tech illiteracy is a self-inflicted consequence of its pitiful salaries in this field, treating IT like a cost center that has to be outsourced to wherever is cheaper and companies' tradition of rewarding management incompetence over technical competence.

Consequently, Germany's most brilliant tech minds leave for The Valley, Zurich or London.

You reap what you sow.

[adrianN]

I don't think that's the case. I believe the problem is that large German companies tend to be hardware companies. They're used to development cycles that take years and extremely conservative in adopting new methods. Management and company culture is not used to dealing with fast changing development methods (where fast is anything that changes more often than once a decade). Rigid processes for compliance with external regulations over time where adopted for internal rules as well, making any change a bureaucratic nightmare.

Salary for developers really isn't that much of an issue. In Berlin for example a developer gets two or three times the median salary easily. That's enough for attracting people who are talented enough to choose, e.g. git and JIRA over whatever crusty system of shared folders and zip files or IBM crap you'd see for projects in many companies.

[kriro]

Pretty much agree with this sentiment regarding hardware/culture.

Also the salaries are acceptable (imo) compared to fairly high paying US jobs if you compare real working hours (vacation time, real 40h workweeks etc.). With a family there's even more benefits. Cost of living also tends to be fairly low (with a high quality of life) compared to higher paying places.

[TulliusCicero]

High paying American bigcorps mostly have perfectly fine work life balance.

Getting double the vacation time (6 weeks instead of 3) when I moved from the US to Germany was very nice, but going back I'll have 5 weeks, which isn't too bad.

[oblio]

> Getting double the vacation time (6 weeks instead of 3) when I moved from the US to Germany was very nice, but going back I'll have 5 weeks, which isn't too bad.

I keep hearing this. Yes, you will get 5 weeks. But what about your wife, your uncle, your friends? In Germany they're all guaranteed to have the same number of days off, access to healthcare, etc. When you have kids you have a bunch of weeks/months off before the child is born and more after.

In the US, as long as you're young, healthy, rich and selfish, life is grand :D

[tomp]

But that's the point of US, no? It's the best country for the best people. So, the best people go to the US... (well, many at least... I'm still holding out... for now, I value European way of life but I envy US political & legal systems, in particular their freedom of speech).

[oblio]

You can can't have 300 million best people. You can't even have 100 million.

And once someone acquires citizenship, their descendants can't lose it, provided it's their only citizenship.

[midgetjones]

This is the funniest thing I've ever read on HN

[TulliusCicero]

Nitpick: the number of vacation days in Germany does vary a bit, though by much less than in the US.

Agreed, I'd love it if all Americans were entitled to 5 or 6 weeks of vacation, plus the various other benefits that are standard in most of western Europe. Unfortunately, the GOP exists, so that's not happening anytime soon.

[odiroot]

> Salary for developers really isn't that much of an issue.

Yes, it absolutely is. And Berlin is the best example; we're even underpaid by German standards.

[srrr]

Many (senior) developers I know in Berlin get 80000€/year gross income. That is in the top 6% of incomes in Germany. (Top 6% income bracket in the USA would be 150000$/year.)

I don't even get 80k€/year and have a very luxurious and high quality life in Berlin.

Resource: https://wid.world/simulator/

[adventured]

The median software developer - out of nearly 1.3 million developers - in the US makes ~$107,000 per year for 2019. A senior developer should be up near $150,000 even outside the primary major tech cities. The top 10% tier of developers starts over $160,000.

[google2342]

New grads can start at 200K+ in the right companies.

[klyonrad]

You are using absolute numbers to make it look more extreme than it is. 107000$ are 94000€ at the moment. Considering the living cost in the USA, it might still be higher in the USA but not that extremely more

[adventured]

No, the numbers I quoted are correct. If they seem extreme, it's because they are compared to everybody else not named Switzerland. I'm using absolute numbers (what?) because those are the dollar wage figures directly from the BLS for software developers. Living costs in the US are not higher than in Germany. That is only true in the most expensive places like eg NYC, SF, Sea.

If you're in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas or several dozen other major cities, cost of living is very reasonable in the US. Your healthcare costs are typically either entirely, or mostly covered by your employer if you're an engineer making $100k+. In Atlanta your all-in effective tax rate is under 30% at $110,000; in Dallas it's under 24%. What's the problem?

[hiram112]

In Germany, with an 80000€ salary, what would be the monthly take home in your pocket? And I'm assuming they would take out taxes for health system, pension, vacation, etc.

In the US in an average taxed state, compare a $150K salary: After federal and state taxes, our old person medical and retirement (i.e. FICA), maximum retirement investment of about $19K, health insurance, disability insurance, dental, etc, one will end up with about $7200 a month or $86K / year in their pocket, which is roughly 42% taxes and retirement. This includes 3 weeks of vacation and 10 Federal holidays.

[srrr]

80k€ would net you between 40-50k€ after all taxes, health insurances and a basic retirement fund. The exact number depends on you having a family or not and many other factors.

In addition your employer pays an amount equal to about 10-15% of your gross salary into your health and retirement insurance. And this pay is on top of your salary. (Arbeitgeberanteil)

Holiday is always included with a minimum of 21 days a year for a full time job. And Germany has paid parental leave included if you start a family.

[C1sc0cat]

What do say Lawyers, doctors and Traditional engineers Get ?

[srrr]

The source may be sketchy but is all I found.

Average lawyer: 50k€/year [1] Average doctor: 75k€/year [2] Average engineer: 60k€/year [3]

[1]https://www.gehaltsvergleich.com/gehalt/Rechtsanwalt-Rechtsa... [2]https://www.gehaltsvergleich.com/gehalt/Arzt-Aerztin-Uni [3]https://www.gehaltsvergleich.com/gehalt/search?jobname=Ingen...

[DangerousPie]

Based on what I have heard from friends in London and Germany salaries are actually a lot better in Germany. Especially once you account for cost of living.

[kayoone]

This. Salaries of 70-90k EUR for Senior devs in Berlin are absolutely achievable and combined with the quite low cost of living in Berlin you probably have more fun money than anywhere in Europe as a developer.

[tpush]

But not nearly as much as you'd have in the US, probably.

[adrianN]

Rents are a lot cheaper in Berlin. You don't need a car either. It's also a nicer city in general, I feel a lot safer in Berlin than in San Francisco.

[TulliusCicero]

German cities themselves are definitely much nicer than American cities. In fact, "much nicer" is an understatement, American cities usually feel like they were designed by people who hate cities and want everyone in them to suffer.

That said, US lifestyle/culture has its own set of advantages compared to Germany. German culture is surprisingly backwards for consumer software/internet stuff, for example.

[colinmhayes]

You don't need to live in the valley. I make twice that much in Chicago which is very comparable to Berlin price wise.

[raverbashing]

And how does salaries (and work environment) in Chicago compare to SF/Berlin?

(Weather is probably comparable to Berlin though)

[Kurtz79]

Salaries for devs in the US are insane compared to the rest of the world, I don't think they can be taken as a reference, especially as most people do not have an easy way to just choose to move there.

[mrep]

Pretty much guaranteed. Even startups pay more than that and GAFAM pays 150,000 to new grads and 300,000-350,000 to senior engineers [0].

[0]: https://www.levels.fyi/

[odiroot]

Anything above high 60's is really a pipe dream in this current market.

[ascar]

Hard truth: It also heavily depends on how good you are. The salaries talked about are usually the top 10% maybe 20%. Like people throwing around Facebook and Amazon salaries. They only employ a small percentage of devs.

That leaves at least 80% that earn considerably less and 50% that earn below the mean.

[tomp]

Quick math lesson: 50% earn below the median. For salaries (in general, I've no idea what it's like for developers in particular) the right-hand tail (high performers with extremely high salaries) and the lack of left-hand tail (no salaries are negative) shifts the mean (arithmetic mean a.k.a. average) upwards so it's actually (usually) going to be more than 50% of population earning below the mean.

[ascar]

Well, it's more of a linguistic/english lesson. I meant the median and just forgot that average and mean are synonyms. But thanks for pointing that out.

I actually edited out exactly the same argument that you wrote, because I (and you) have nothing to actually back it up.

Counterexample: if 60% of people earn very close above the average and 35% earn 30% below average and 5% earn (on average) double the total average, then the majority earns above average even tho the right hand-tail gets high. This is just one possible scenario that is not even completely unrealistic.

Also remember that most crazy incomes are not salaries.

[hobofan]

If you are looking at SMBs that treat you as a "IT guy", sure.

If you are looking at more "modern" tech companies in Berlin or well-funded startups it's definitely possible. The last 3 job offers I had were in the 90-100k range, for a "senior" position (~6 years of experience) in Berlin.

[odiroot]

This is definitely an outlier and not the norm. Look at Glassdoor and LinkedIn.

Maybe Zalando offers more but few would want to work there.

[hobofan]

Just from the top of my head, you could probably earn well at: Zalando, HERE, Mozilla, EyeEm, Blacklane, MongoDB, Zeitgold, Talon.one, Infarm (just raised a juicy funding round) + a boatload of blockchain startups

On top of that, a lot of the bigger SV startups have satellite offices in Berlin.

[kayoone]

Its just from my personal experience, but i know a lot of people in the 70k+ range at different companies, all senior though. We also interview a lot and a considerable amount of candidates that get offered high sixties go somewhere else where they got a better offer.

[southerndrift]

To add to this: The CDU (conservative party) turned back the decision to role out a fiber network across Germany that would have been constructed from the 80ies until the millenium [1]. If you actively burn your fields, then there is nothing to reap.

[1] https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kam...

[robocat]

I really don't get the argument about fibre to the home being good for business.

For working from home, VDSL is pretty much good enough for most working needs (from what I have seen).

Fibre really shines for the consumer - especially video.

We have fibre to the home in New Zealand, and it doesn't make us an IT nation, or meet any of the gushing political waffle about our IT future.

It suspect the costs have a reasonable timeframe for payback as a tax payer: the government "invested" about 500€ per household to cover 80% of the population (1000€ if only 40% of households use it). I would be interested to see numbers to justify it, but is smells ok on the surface.

[Faark]

I tend to agree and german political discourse about network development seems to generally be focused on broadband for rural areas with shitty if any internet available right now. Thus it's probably more addressing class divide than maximizing overall GDP or something like that.

[mehdix]

> companies' tradition of rewarding management incompetence over technical competence

I witnessed this and moved out of the large rich corporate to a small startup to keep my sanity.

[madez]

Care to share your experience?

[mschuster91]

> treating IT like a cost center that has to be outsourced to wherever is cheaper

As if outsourcing wasn't a common trend across Western companies "thanks" to globalization and the utter dominance of US-american neoliberalism.

> and companies' tradition of rewarding management incompetence over technical competence

Again, quite common - the "old" Soziale Marktwirtschaft moguls with decades-long visions would not let today's next-quarter-only shit fly for long.

> Consequently, Germany's most brilliant tech minds leave for The Valley, Zurich or London.

Care to have a source for SV and London? People avoid SV/USA due to the current President and London due to the Brexit uncertainity - in fact, whoever can flees from the UK before Johnson drives everything into the ground. Only correct point is Switzerland but that's not surprising since their wages run way, way higher than Germanys across the board...

[est31]

I'm a German soon to be CS graduate and right now my favourites are SV and London. I'll try to get into a company that can sponsor L1 visa for SV first and then I'll try London.

The German job market is precisely as described by GP: you are competing all the time with remote people in countries with much smaller cost of living and the wages are super low compared to aforementioned places. Germany has great schools, and medical system and I think when/if I want to raise a family I'll come back. But until then I want to make money and you do this while it's easy to move around.

You can say this is a cultural problem but I think the problem is different: there is just no big software industry in Germany. It's mostly SAP salespeople, development of various custom ISV software and a small startup scene in Berlin. Most German companies don't need good software for the stuff they are doing.

[pjmlp]

As Portuguese doing consultancy in Germany, the market is way better than in other European countries.

As for the software quality, it is everywhere the same when the main business is not selling software packages.

Companies just care that their use cases are covered, no matter how it looks under the hood.

[pmontra]

This. Italy here, working with Slack, GitHub, etc. But my customers don't always care about the technical details. Companies with an IT staff usually do, the others don't because they don't know anything about those problems, except some scare about cookies and GDPR.

I could write software on paper and deploy by magic, it would be ok for them. And why not, they make money selling other stuff. Then a customer I haven't been working for a very long time calls me asking if I got a copy of their production VM, even many years ago would be ok (obviously I didn't) because they got hit by ransomware years after having stopped to do backups, maybe because it was too inconvenient.

[est31]

Of course Germany is a better market than say portugal. But that doesn't mean that I'll try to check the globally competitive offers first, to which Germany doesn't seem to belong.

[_puk]

How is Portugal on the cost of living vs wage scale?

I was under the impression that the likes of Lisbon are great if you earn above average wage, and the surf is awesome.

Tech in Lisbon not comparable to Germany?

[pjmlp]

Fellow countrymen might jump in to set me straight, as I have been away for too long, so I lack proper information.

Lisbon is a great city, but expect to live in the suburbs due to the high cost of renting and enjoy about one hour commute time and salaries are still below what we used to enjoy during the first .com wave (1995 - 2002).

Yes, tech is comparable, but not everyone can live in Lisbon.

There are smaller tech hubs across Porto, Aveiro, Braga and Coimbra due to their universities, but pay is even less than in Lisbon, although you get to enjoy better quality life and might afford to live on the city center.

But expect to do lots of overtime without any kind of reward beyond a "thank you", while in Germany those kind of situations are regulated, and in when it happens you have the support to complain about them. If you want to actually take that route that is another matter.

Naturally there are a few unicorns that are great places to work and do reward the extra mile, but they are the exception, not the rule.

[sveme]

> The German job market is precisely as described by GP: you are competing all the time with remote people in countries with much smaller cost of living and the wages are super low compared to aforementioned places.

This is not something I ever encountered. Are you sure you are familiar with real job markets? If you're looking for an interesting job (in Munich), feel free to contact me.

[adrianN]

There are companies in Germany who pay really well, especially if you take into account cost of living. Look around a bit before leaving the country.

[est31]

Do you have any names?

[adrianN]

Twitch has some engineering in Berlin, Amazon pays quite well, Siemens pays quite well, as do the various car companies (basically any company with a strong IG Metall presence pays 70k+ for developers), Snowflake has some engineering in Berlin too (I work for them, you can figure out my email address fairly easily and drop me a mail if you like). Startups in Berlin generally pay 60-100k depending on seniority. Median income in Berlin is something like 18k after taxes, so maybe 30k before taxes.

[C1sc0cat]

Ah twitch is German explains the poor UI - they really really need some UX

[est31]

Thanks!

[mschuster91]

BMW, for example. They pay boatloads.

[nosianu]

> I'm a German soon to be CS graduate

As someone who was in that position ca. 20 years ago and then moved to SV for almost a decade: I don't think I would have dare to make such a sweeping claim as you:

> The German job market is precisely as described by GP

As a completely new entry into the job market, despite plenty of real work experience (during the last two years of my study the study was "secondary", I managed to make all major university projects about things I needed to do at work anyway), how could I possibly have know enough? I know I never had that feeling.

I actually did move to SV immediately so I can understand what draws you, no argument there. Still, I returned after almost a decade.

I think you are waayyyyyy overvaluing your own experience level. Where does such confidence come from? You cannot know even 1% of the German IT job market given how many medium sized of importance there are. Even in the US there is a large number of software businesses nobody has ever heard of because they are in a niche. For example, I once consulted for a company in Fort Worth (TX) where software for giants like Walmart was written. I think even here in this forum very few people would have heard of that company.

Occasionally someone, often magazines, ask about-to-be-finished students where they want to work. Inevitably the top ten are a handful of major names. That says a lot about students knowledge about potential employers, which seems to consist of only a few names of the already well-known few big companies. It says nothing at all about the reality of the far more diverse job market and the myriad of interesting options at thousands of other interesting companies.

Example: Top companies to work for,

- Students of business: https://www.arbeitgeber-ranking.de/rankings/studenten/bereic...

- Students of engineering: https://www.arbeitgeber-ranking.de/rankings/studenten/bereic...

If you just drive through Germany blindly, without a map, you'll find company after company that would never be listed here because they are not a mass-market brand.

So by all means, do go to SV, it's certainly a great experience. Just don't overvalue your own experience, and question why you are so confident in your claims and generalizing your own very limited experience.

[wiz21c]

secondign this. I'm 45 yo, and by the time I entered the job market, I was a real good developer (sold my first commercial program at 16, made 3D engines at 18, etc.). And you know what ? I didn't knew anything. That's because software is a just a part of the equation : knowing the business, the people, the rules, the companies, your own needs in life, working with others, with management, etc. All of that you don't learn at school and you learn as you go. So if you can land a job in SV, just do it, but don't think that's the end of it :-)

Now, for my part, I came to the conclusion software is just a tool and, as that tool, I want to be used for things that matter to me. Since I think that the only thing that matters now are fighting poverty, climate change, I really wonder what I'm gonna do...

And I can assure you, when I was at your age, all my life was oriented to make one and only one thing : 3D engines for video games, which I did.

So you see, life is full of surprise :-)

[est31]

Thank you both for your input. I don't want to leave Germany on a permanent basis. I'm looking forward to the German job market in 5-7 years, maybe more, maybe less, depending on how much I like it.

As for well-known vs not well known: usually bigger companies have more employee protections, more career possibilities, pay better, etc. In small companies you have more power and control, and to some this makes them more interesting. I think larger companies are better but maybe I'll be annoyed by the bureocracy and switch to a smaller company, idk :).

[nosianu]

> usually bigger companies have

And again you make sweeping generalizations...

I worked at what was a startup whose name you likely know, during the dot com boom, you could go from not-long-out-of-university to "very important head honcho of XYZ department" going (or flying) to very important meetings with really important executives of major companies in no time. Try that at some major company. It's actually rather unhealthy - for everybody, although the drug feels good to you at that time.

[ahartmetz]

From what I've seen, salary vs cost of living is rather crap in London because London is very, very expensive. SV makes sense if that is what you want to do.

[kayoone]

come to Berlin, nothing of what you say applies there imo. Salaries might be substantially lower than in SV, but it's also far far cheaper. Eg. as a Senior 70-90k EUR is realistic in Berlin (without management), allowing you a very good quality of live in a city that is nowhere near SV/London in terms of rent and many other expenses.

[est31]

IDK I'm not a very consumption oriented person. In the phase of life following my graduation I plan to save my money so "how much can you save" is the metric I compare places by. Yes, SV has a higher cost of living and I'm not an extremist like this very frugal guy who lived in a van for his mountain view internship (cool trick though!). But from my assessment even if you rent a room/condo, SV/London are still more attractive than Germany.

If your lifestyle is to spend most of your paycheck (which is a fine lifestyle btw, I don't want to be judgemental), then I think Berlin is much greater than SV. The fewer money you get is at the same time more powerful in Berlin. If you have children, even more so.

But you know you maybe want to buy a flat or house, but for that you need money. It's hard and takes years to use your SV/London wage to buy SV/London flats. It's hard to use your Berlin wage to buy Berlin flats. It is comparatively easy though to use your SV/London wage to buy a Berlin flat.

Germany is not unattractive for me on a permanent basis, but I think in the current situation I'm in, other places are more attractive.

Also I might be wrong, I'll conduct a final assessment once I graduated and have concrete job and wage offers and can do cost of living calculations and how much I'll be able to save after deducing all costs I expend.

[mbeex]

> People avoid SV/USA due to the current President

_some_ people do. Others allow themselves different opinions to this president and even to their prospects in SV

> and London due to the Brexit uncertainity

True

> before Johnson drives everything into the ground

... but also here there are different opinions concerning the nature of this uncertainty

[HeWhoLurksLate]

Aaaand some people care more about their life than they do their country's politics, thankfully.

IMO, politics and stuff is necessary, but I really wish we could argue /debate respectfully without the damn flame wars everywhere of late. It seriously puts me off.

[mschuster91]

The point is that the current Trump administration has a massive problem with immigration - that may or may not have consequences if you want to emigrate to the US. Or Brexit - if Johnson really delivers a no deal Brexit then UK economy is getting fucked over hard plus the right of free movement for EU citizens vanishes so you can get deported overnight.

Politics at this scale are life changing matters, and unfortunately with both the US and the UK governments it is clear that they are not run by competent people with a plan but by people who literally don't have any fixed opinion except nationalism - and that means that, as an immigrant, you're rock bottom of the ladder.

[mbeex]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but other people may make a difference in what "is clear" to them.