[k__]

"skill level did not take off so much"

Big problem in German enterprise.

They don't have any IT skills, but much money and are constantly crying for "digital transformation" what usually only leads them to being conned by big consulting agencies.

[bencw]

Why is this? Is there a brain drain going on?

[woodpanel]

Having worked in multiple German Blue Chips, my 5 cents:

- Brain-drain, likely (US vs German salaries is a joke) but also likely offset by brain-gain from other places (in my experience only Scandinavia, Netherlands and Switzerland beat German salaries, lately)

- safety-seeking culture draws the wrong people to the big corps. The more of them there are, the worse productivity and innovation gets.

- because of their appeal to masses of safety-seeking underperformers wages at German blue-chips are usually noticeably lower than at consultancies or Mittelstand, pushing away even those few talented they did recruit

- keeping talented and motivated people long-term is even harder because if enough of the wrong there are, you’ll often have strictly defined career-options, so that e.g. after 10 years you cannot possibly get another raise unless you stop engineering and do Inner-corporate bureaucracy work.

- I’ve seen niches in these companies where people shield their team / unit from that mess, pro-actively outsmarting the corporate machine (e.g. hacking the hiring process, securing backing from CEOs, pushing for technological visions...) Those units have a big draw on inner-company talent, but are limited in how much talent they can take into care. Working there is very pleasant. As maybe highlighted by the fact that these guys are more likely aware that their pay is an insult, but they stay regardless.

[k__]

"safety-seeking culture draws the wrong people to the big corps"

So true.

I have the feeling big German corps are basically a work creation scheme.

[Bayart]

Not really. The difference in salary isn't enough incentive for people to leave Western Europe at scale. You'll still live very well as a STEM graduate in France/Benelux/Germany.

It's just a cultural thing. Germany has tons of family-owned businesses with a fairly conservative ethos that manage to do well in spite of complete technological illiteracy.

[enitihas]

Should be. The salary disparity in US and EU is immense.

[fileeditview]

And on the other side so are the healthcare and public services. I don't think there is a big scale brain drain to the US.

I am doing the job for about 6-7 years and I don't know a single dev that went to the US. But I know many devs that came from other european countries and even the US.