| I mean you can definitely earn more than 60k in Germany. I don't know about Berlin though. In Stuttgart, Frankfurt or Munich this would be too little to get a senior developer. Most of the other professions pay less. From the list you gave, and the people I know, I would assume the sorting is roughly: * physical therapists (can't go much lower in pay) * pilots (there are just way too many, except for those in old contracts at the big airlines they are almost paid like bus drivers) * accountants (usually a normal salary, but nothing special) * civil engineers / software engineers roughly on the same level, although the latter has an easier time finding a job Lawyers and doctors earn a lot more than engineers (at least looking at my friends in these fields), but they usually also work more, leading to a similar hourly rate. One thing you have to account for in Germany vs the US: * Much higher job stability. * Most people work 35-40h a week and never do unpaid overtime. * 6 weeks paid vacation per year is normal. * You almost never get called into work on the weekend. * CoL isn't as insane as in SF or Seattle, so your salary buys you a decent life. * No copays if you get chronic conditions, cancer or some such. So you don't need to save up for a medical catastrophe. |
exactly. I made that as a Junior in my first full-time job in Munich in 2000 already. Then moved on to freelancing and for the next decade never invoiced less than EUR 12K/month (average was actually EUR ~16K). I did a lot of hours and paid a lot of tax but it also got me fast cars, holidays in Italy, Austria or Switzerland (just for the weekends) and a nanny to help look after my kids. And I wasn't even an outlier since anyone who I worked with (often via places like Hays or Allgeier Group etc) was on pretty much the same.
What I've noticed in the recent years (I moved around 2009) is there has been a push to "Arbeitnehmerüberlassung", which is basically a racket where the outsourcing agency hires you out to their clients, they skim the margins and leave the employees with a crap salary. They sit in their clients office and are second class employees. When the project ends they're moved on to the next company if they're lucky or are asked to come in to the office (not on the client site but the place where they organize this type of slavery), then they get to call prospective clients and beg for jobs that they themselves have to do. It's surreal and idiotic but it's peoples fault for putting up with it instead of just freelancing and writing their own invoices.