[mmarq]

I don’t have an informed opinion, but with my limited interactions with Germans, the problem with software engineering is that it is not considered a high status profession. The smart German would rather go into law, medicine, accounting (!!) or teaching, than into software development. It is true that before Brexit salaries were much lower compared to the UK, and that only recently, after Covid, they skyrocketed. So this perception may have changed for the younger generations.

Mind, this is my poor man’s sociologist analysis, but it seems that they rely heavily on foreigners, which are very hard to attract because of the language and bureaucratic barrier. From what I see, even companies that pay good salaries (say ~100K total compensation for a senior) mainly employ foreigners.

[FirmwareBurner]

>It is true that before Brexit salaries were much lower compared to the UK

And people from the UK say the opposite, that engineers are not respected and paid in the UK the way they are in Germany. I think the low/high PoV of your salary depends in which bubble you hang around. Every market is flooded with low pay offers, but yes, I feel like in Germany, unless you work for big-tech, SW engineering is pay way less compared to other positions, in contrast to the US where tech wages rule over the rest.

>only recently, after Covid, they skyrocketed

I don't think you're correct, maybe that was true at the height of the market a year or so before, but recently after the tech market fell and layoffs happened, I see most companies rarely hire and when they do they exclusively want skilled seniors for mid-level pay. I don't see those skyrocket salaries anymore after the market collapsed.

Same info I got when I talk to people who recruit/hire: a year or so ago they were struggling to hire and had to increase pay or hire juniors and train them, but now they get a tone of experienced applicants for every opening that they can dictate pay.

[mmarq]

> And people from the UK say the opposite, that engineers are not respected and paid in the UK the way they are in Germany

I was referring to software developers. Before 2016-17, a software developer in London would make twice as much as in Berlin. Now it seems you’d make slightly more in Berlin than in London.

> I see most companies rarely hire and when they do they exclusively want skilled seniors for mid-level pay.

I know that Zalando, Delivery Hero, Hello Fresh and other similar companies pay more on the entire scale (from junior vs junior to principal vs principal) than comparable companies in London. Salaries skyrocketed in the sense that just a few years ago they would be lower than in London. I know Meta pays higher salaries in Germany than in the UK for fully remote roles (I was told by an internal recruiter last year).

It’s possible, though, that if one is in the lower part of the distribution their salary may be higher in London, but I haven’t investigated.

[FirmwareBurner]

> Now it seems you’d make slightly more in Berlin than in London.

Out of curiosity, got any sources to back this up?

> Zalando, Delivery Hero, Hello Fresh [...] pay more on the entire scale [...] than comparable companies in London.

The thing is London has a lot more tech jobs than just overrated web-shops and shitty food delivery apps that depend on underpaid bicycle delivery workers from abroad to be profitable (basically modern salve labor).

In London you have big-oil, big-real-estate, all the FAANGs, finance, HFT, AI, med-tech and many opportunities to be a contractor for 600 pounds/day in the City, opportunities far above what working for some web-shop and food-delivery app pay in Berlin, as those are mostly body-shop visa factories anyway that burn people out (from what I've heard).

I'm not advocating for one or the other, I don't have a dog in this fight, but the upper end salaries in London vastly overtake the upper end spectrum in Berlin. And anecdotally, the last salaries offers I got in Berlin were all laughable. I got better offers in the semiconductor industry in Dusseldorf working less hours.

[mmarq]

I’m not arguing the morality of food delivery platforms (and I’ve only mentioned one because some friends work there), I’m saying that they pay better than in London.

In Delivery Hero and Hello Fresh, I know seniors making 100K, staff engineers making 150K, so I suppose principals would make 200K. This is more than similar roles make in London. Also, talking to people that work there, I wouldn’t call these places body shops, rather they seem to work less than I do (maybe you could argue they are visa factories, because they don’t employ many Germans, even though EU citizens don’t need visas).

I think I am in the upper end of the spectrum in London (>200K), and I am exploring the possibility of leaving the UK. The only offers that come close to my current compensation are from Germany or the Netherlands. Taxes are also lower than in the UK, which was surprising to discover. Hedge funds aside, in London I get worse offers, around half of my current income, like in Spain.

Finally Berlin is relatively poor, I wouldn't be surprised if salaries were higher in Bavaria, Hamburg or North-Rhine Westfalia.

[FirmwareBurner]

>In Delivery Hero and Hello Fresh, I know seniors making 100K, staff engineers making 150K, so I suppose principals would make 200K.

Question, are these salaries documented anywhere or is it your insider knowledge? Also, I don't doubt people with such wages exist in Berlin at these companies, but how many seniors and principals are those food companies hiring now in this economy? I sense it's not easy now to get one of those six figure jobs.

[mmarq]

I helped two friends in their negotiations, so I know exactly how much they make (between 140 and 160K total compensation). They were hired early this year. I also interviewed for similar companies in Berlin and Munich (I refused two offers and I was discarded by one company).

On levels.fyi, salaries seem to be slightly lower, but still in 6 figure territory: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/delivery-hero/salaries/soft...

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/hellofresh/salaries/softwar...

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/zalando/salaries/software-e...

According to their websites, Delivery Hero and HelloFresh are still hiring senior, staff, principal and senior principal engineers.

Anyway, I know many “average” engineers making 80-100K as seniors in Germany (I mean people that don’t do leet code, that don’t negotiate much, that don’t care too much about their career), in hyper unionised companies with massive benefits and ironclad job security.