[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.