[MrKurtHaeusler]

I am a foreigner who has been working as a developer or manager in the software sector in Germany for around 10 years. For a couple of years I have been trying to move towards self-employment, with some ups and downs, but I am making progress on a project together with my wife. Last year I had the chance to switch jobs and move elsewhere so I naturally targeted Berlin. I would like to keep working in a high-paying job while funding the startup that I work on in my free time. I noticed a few things:

There are a quite a few startup jobs, but they are low end, low paying. Many pay even less than what I started on 10 years ago. They are looking for those starting their first job I think. I get the feeling Berlin startups get a lot less funding that other startups. Even the non-startup jobs that require more experience seem to pay a lot less, and even with the slightly cheaper rent than other cities, I couldn't find any attractive options. The official work experience I have on my CV is more enterprisy stuff like .NET and lots of stuff startups care less about like Scrum, Kanban, management in general and agile software development. I do have experience with things like Ruby, Python and JavaScript, but even startup employers were only interested in what was on my CV.

Not complaining or anything, just trying to help get a feel on what I found while looking there last year.

I found a good job near Frankfurt, and who knows, maybe I will end up in Berlin later, but I feel I might not need to. Frankfurt has a startup scene (and a rich financial sector). So does Cologne where I used to live.

[NicoleSimon]

"The official work experience I have on my CV is more enterprisy stuff"

That already is your point. You are coming from an enterprise thinking and payment structure - Berlin is everything but Enterprise.

With your kind of payment expectations, they will simply expect you to step up the game, and that probably is at least CTO if not co founder. If you want to be your specialized dev, you need to be extra good to work around this area and _understand_ what startups are about.

Also, judging by your nickname here, your name still sounds German. If you are from A / CH by definition (and if not proven otherwise on your CV and through experiences) you are not automatically startup material. Don't get me wrong: it is just about different skillset and mentality and if you cannot provide proof that you are not tainted by that obstacle, you will have an even harder time getting a job in that environment.

[MrKurtHaeusler]

I am not an enterprise thinker, but I have developed enterprise salary expectations. One of my current areas of interest is helping slow old large businesses be more effective by using e.g. Lean startup ideas.

To be honest though I am not a natural entrepreneur. Or at least I may have been while younger but I have become soft over the years. I only really started thinking about startups etc maybe 3 or 4 years ago and it's hard to break out of the comfortable employee lifestyle.

I am from an English speaking country with German ancestors, but I don't know if that background makes me more or less startup material. There seem to be roughly the same distribution if entrepreneurs here as in my home country.

But I am focused now on being founder rather than employee. Already CTO of a non-profit r&d team with my wife as CEO.

[nirvana]

I think you're bringing up good points, which I would summarize this way:

The berlin startup scene is great for recent graduates as an employee, but if you're more experienced, then you want to be a founder.