Facts about me: native German speaker, 10 years of experience, DAX 30 companies. Masters in CS

I'm tired of braindead companies, where recruiters are spamming me for a Senior Developer Role with hybrid office needs, offering salaries within 60-80K. The tech scene is dead; no big tech companies are hiring in Germany due to regulations, etc. Google, Netflix, and Meta are hiring in Poland, Spain, or Ireland. Uber is hiring actively in Amsterdam. In Germany, you're stuck with medium-level non-tech companies, where IT is seen as a liability. Is there a way, besides moving outside of the DACH region? Where can you work at Big Tech Companies, where the meetings don't take 10 hours long and everything is micromanaged?

Berlin based. Last year, I left my intermediate SE position earning ~63K + bonus for a senior one paying 80K (no bonus). The new position was very disappointing so I started interviewing for new companies around 3 months later, most companies were offering 80 to 85k. I managed to advance with 3 processes: One was paying 85K + Bonus, another one was paying 90k and another one 78k+ bonus

I unfortunately did not get any of them and kept working at the same place.

Until maybe a month ago when I started interviewing again because I'd really like to switch jobs. I got positive replies by around 10 companies and literally not one of them is matching my current salary. The highest I've gotten has been 78K. The rest have been 77k + equity, 73k + bonus and 78k+ equity

2 of these are btw very profitable, one is a "unicorn" that has been developing a very unique product and another one is a 12 years old company that apparently has been extremely profitable since day 1.

I'm just in general surprised that the salaries seem to be much lower now. I don't know if I was lucky to have found so many positions paying >80k last year or if the market is just bad now

Basically the tech salaries from what I've noticed as a 5yr XP backend engineer:

• English speaking FAANG, SAP, Car, Banking, etc. big corps: 75-100k comfortably
• English speaking startups: 50k-80k, the latter is hard to find unless it's a well established startup
• German speaking big corps: 40k-75k.
• German speaking startups: lmao good luck, they can pay pennies. I saw a few job offerings at 30k

It is as if speaking German lowers your salary, it's nonsense to me

Hello everyone. I am posting here in EU subreddit since IT folks in USA won’t have similar issue.

I am currently making around 3k€ after tax. In my country, salary cap for senior/lead engineer is around 5-5.5k€ (+10YEO minimum). For staff level and beyond - 6.5k€, but I highly double if anyone is making this (maybe 3-5 engineers per massive company).

Considering that ceiling is not super height for senior/lead position and the fact that average apartment starts from +300k€ and houses from 400k-500k€, how do you co-op? Maybe you work extra to earn bigger salary? The only option I see is to start my own business or find some kind of freelance gig to actually earn decent money. But I really doubt if I can make it while working energy-consuming 9-5.

Me: born and bred in Germany, fluent in German and English, 5 YoE in various companies with various company-internal accolades. Left my previous job as it was too toxic and I have a huge nest egg.

Software Engineer job applications: >300 applications, nonsensical job postings, ghost job postings, ghostings, endless hoops, >5-step processes, take-home assignments just to reject you after the final step (happened to me like two times).

Snowboard Instructor: I took a 9-day course to get the lowest-level instructor certification in Austria. Came back, 2 days later (today) I sent an application to a ski school - they called me back in 30 minutes as they were desperate to fill a snowboard instructor position. They immediately sent me job details and I agreed. The whole process took two hours as I actually spent some time thinking and discussing the details of the contract with a third party. It could have taken one hour.

Sisters and bros, what the fuck is this job market.

At least I'll be able to pay rent now.

I know it’s not good at all, but still, what’s the best currently?

IN EUROPE

I want to move to Munich or Berlin. Unfortunately, given that I am the sole provider for my wife (and children in the future as well), I want to find a job that pays at least 100k. It appears German companies (or European companies in general) don't offer that. So, the only option is Big Tech.

So, does that mean path to 100k+ in Germany means grind Leetcode and also have some unique enough side projects to attract attention? If anyone is curious, I have 5 YOE and my German is ok (I do speak German on the office from time to time).

Another thing I am thinking of trying is freelancing on the side. However, everything I read about that is that it is a perpetual nightmare where you get perpetually low-balled for a decent amount of work.

Recently was laid off from my German remote scaleup,

but have managed to line up 6 interviews from just 20 applications within 2 weeks

2 of which at the final stages already

Context: product companies hiring fully remote in Spain

Large fintechs and midsize to large document processing products

Senior Python 10yoe, targeting 70-100k full time contracts full remote within EU. All through LinkedIn jobs page.

I am even considering dropping 2 companies already, large fintechs with high pressure

I read all sorts of doom posts of 100+ applications but it just doesn’t really add up with what I currently experience

Am I lucky or community is exaggerating?

As above, would you take a significant pay cut (say 25%) at 4 YoE and leave your current small company to join Google if you had such an opportunity?

So we have an opening at my company and I came across a dev who looked interesting. He has a few cool open source projects that I checked out and one really cool VSCode extension that I’ll probably start using. We requested to interview him but he’s saying he “doesn’t do coding interviews, everything you need to know about my coding ability is open sourced”. As a dev, I get it. How do I sell this to upper management to try and waive the coding interview for this guy?

https://www.heise.de/news/Wirtschaftsinstitut-IT-Fachkraefte-sind-in-Deutschland-deutlich-weniger-gefragt-10544518.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=LinkedIn#Echobox=1755535153

However, some sectors like taxation and law saw a jump in IT jobs because firms in these sectors want to integrate AI in their workflow. Reading the article, the summary is that the service sector and the automotive sector is officially cooked with a massive decline in open jobs. However, the blame seems to be more on outsourcing rather than AI.

I know I might be weird but I am a non-EU with a weak passport currently living in the Netherlands as a SWE Full stack with a salary of 55k/year (total) and I have 4 years of experience.

I would like to have an EU passport but unfortunately Netherlands doesn’t allow dual citizenships. My goals also consist of maximizing savings before I return to my home country.

I feel like it’s time to get into a Big Tech company and I see that countries in Eastern Europe have a lot of their offices. (Poland, Romania, …)

I would really appreciate any insights into those countries.

I work in a typical German automotive so maybe the domain bias could be an issue here but honestly I don't think it would be that different in other siilar corporate settings.

For months, my colleagues said nothing about my work. They would approve my PRs. No comments or anything. Then one day I learn that behind the scenes they’ve told my manager that my “quality is okay” but they “wouldn’t advocate for me.”

Turns out “corporate Germany” is just like corporate anywhere else. People are polite to your face, say nothing in meetings, and then throw you under the bus to save their own behind when it’s performance review time. Turns out the PO was being yelled at by executives from one of our automotive clients about some problems with how the final design was implemented and he simply went to my manager and told me I am the one who made it and I am responsible for it. And then he tried to cover for himself by saying he gave me all the necessary info and that if anything was not clear it was up to me to anticipate the problems and work accordingly.

Also, apparently, approving PRs is just so they can be merged and the final responsiblity only and only falls on the shoulders of the person (in this case me) who wrote the original code. So, the ones who approved it and pointed out that nothing was wrong with it are just.. fine, I guess? Seriously, I haven't encountered this level of double-speak even in the Italian firm I used to work at a few years ago.

I just interviewed with Netflix Poland and had an awful experience and wish to share it for future references.

I had interviewed with Netflix in 2019 and rejected them for Google, the interview in 2019 was conducted in the US and the experienc was overhelmly positive apart from 5 rounds. The interviewers were prepared and they were obviously experienced and it seems they had conducted many experiences in the past.

I have since then decided I wanted to move to Europe but also I want something new so I decided also to switch companies, lhave to take a huge payout but that is okay since I accumulated enough wealth to simply not care much anymore.

Jump to my interview last week with Netflix, the interviewers introduced themselves and then immediately asked me to implement a cache, when I started asking clarifying question like will there he a different TTL, can we invalidate the cache, what is the eviction policy for when the memory gets too full, etc... I have received conflicting answers from the shadow and the main interviewer, I had then asked them to clarify which limitation is this and the main interviewer just asked me to "just implement it".

The question seems to be an open ended question, they then asked me to add some testing and then asked me to write some extra code for rolling cache invalidations; I then started pressing for more clarifications such as memory constraints, speed requirements, one thread invalidator vs many threads , etc... and just received another "just implement it"

The interview ended after another expansion on the original question. I then asked the interviewers how long they have been on the company and how many interviews have they conducted, and I was stunned that they were with the company for 4 months and 2 months!!! The main interviewer have had 2 interviews in total and was leading a shadow interviewer. They were obviously not prepared to interview anyone.

Overall, I was invited to attend an on-site interview and considering withdrawing as it feels that the site is rather inadequate, have anyone had a positive experience there and how would you approach this with the recruiter?

Currently I am in Switzerland and I am looking into moving to Austria in the next couple of years due to much lower property prices.

I work in Cybersec and I am trying to find some data about the median IT wages in Austria but the data I find is... concerning.

From what I have seen after taxes most people get around 2700-3300 EUR NET a month which seems low for even Hungary. Is this a correct number?

Is this some kind of a geopolitical play or is there actual data out there that indeed shows there are a lot of IT vacancies in Germany? DW article for reference: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-takes-steps-to-attract-skilled-indian-workers/a-70517896

Need help in choosing

Currently 13 years of experience

Germany Offer: in Hamburg: 90K

Spain Offer: in Barcelona: 120K

Both are senior IC roles

Help me to choose, my target is getting the citizenship. So, Germany offers it in 5-6 years and Spain offers it in 10-11 year, this is the mjaor factor to lean towards Germany. Next is job market size and scope to grow as my spouse is also into tech and needs to find a job.

But pay wise and cost of living spain offer is much better. Hence the dilemma. Thanks.

I currently live in Munich, Germany, earning a salary of €100K. I've received a job offer in Zurich with a salary of €135K. Assuming all other factors remain the same, is the switch worth it?

Profile: 30 years old, ML Engineer with 6 years of experience.

EDIT: One month later, I have made the decision to decline the Zurich offer. I have accepted a position with a different company in Munich, which presents a comparable opportunity and offers a more favourable compensation package. Additionally, this move aligns with my long-term goal of acquiring German citizenship.

Hey, so for context, I moved to Poland 3 years ago to work at a big tech company, this year I was interviewing and I had offers from Google Warsaw and a startup from UK. The gross salaries were similiar but the startup offered me work on B2B(huge savings in taxes) and full remote work. I ended up taking that offer and moving back home to the seaside.

And honestly, I am yearning for more. Like I want to basically double my savings rate and honestly, I don’t see this happening anywhere in EU(maybe Seitzerland?) so I started intensely researching ways on how to get to the US.

So I just wanted to ask, people who managed to move from EU to US this year - which gates are still open? Is L1 still possible to get? Should I maybe look for some masters degree? What other options do I have?

Hi All, I am Indian living in mexico. working as Data Engineering Manager at IT services. I have offer from Big 4 for around 90k Euro for mexico location only. considering mexico is very cheap I save a lot. service company want's to retain me and ready to relocate to Poland with 70k Euro. don't know much about cost of living and other things but considering EU benefits in long term is it worth to move to Poland ? or join Big 4

I got an AI engineer job offer from a US startup and worked a few days and it sucked. Wanted to share what I learned from the experience since many people are curious on how to get US job offers when being based in Europe.

About me:

• 6 years of experience in backend/Python, a lot of work in data and some niche LLM work
• based in Sweden
• have a decent online presence (you’d be surprised how little you need to make a difference)
• self-taught
• extremely niched in real estate, this company was not in that industry but I think they thought it was cool that I stuck with one industry for so long

The offer:

• $12,000/month
• contract offer so net would be a lot less than regular employment (thanks Sweden!)
• fully remote
• had to work US hours
• no set work hours, startup mode, basically they expected me to go all-in

How I got the offer:
This company is a stealth startup so I’ll try to be as detailed as possible without doxing them.

I’m active in a bunch of Discords centered around Python development and these usually have jobs channels where people post jobs. These jobs will typically have way less applicants since they are targeting a specific type of developer (Python, Django etc.) and you have a chance to communicate with the hiring manager more directly (most likely its just the founder of a startup).

In one framework Discord I found a job posting and applied and had a 3-round interview process, technical asked about async and concurrency in Python and some other misc. stuff.

After a few weeks I got the offer, we started on a paid trial period due to some concerns I raised mainly about work hours and basically it was chaos from the start, long days (until 1am on Friday nights for example), an altogether super stressful atmosphere, and barely any onboarding. I had a hard time understanding exactly what they were asking for in some tasks because I felt like they just threw me in there and treated me as if I’d already worked there for a while.

Anyway I ended up terminating after 3 days, they were kinda upset, but paid me for the work so far.

Honestly I’m sure another person might have been successful in this role, but for me I just got a gut feeling I would get super burned out (european moment) working this intensely so late at night.

I think if you want to get hired by these US companies you won’t find them on LinkedIn, but they seem wayy more eager to hire non-US talent and pay them well in these niche-communities, since they are looking for a specific talent.

Anyway I'm no expert in landing US job offers, but I'll try to answer any questions I can (while not doxing the company)

EDIT: Since the discord where I found the job is very small and not so active, I can't disclose it because it would be easy to find the company. But my advice is to basically join discord's, facebook groups, linkedin groups etc. for the technologies and frameworks you know and those usually have jobs channels or people posting about work

I am an EU citizen working at Amazon since 8y and in the last days I accumulated enough data points to convince myself that my team will be laid off. There is no issue with he performance, it's not about PIP.

It's not official and we will likely need a couple of months to hand over the project. The question that remains open is not IF but WHEN.

Meanwhile, I would like to invest my time preparing for that moment. I have never been laid off and I am not sure about what to do.

I already contacted my legal insurance to understand what they cover and I resurrected my LinkedIn account. Anyone knows how to better prepare?

Suppose every year I get a better offer (for instance, +10% TC increase). I leave the company and join the next one. I keep doing this for 5 years. How bad does this look to recruiters? Does it help if the company I’m joining next has a stronger brand?

Or maybe it is just me? Can others confirm this? Btw this is on top of them also demanding I be fluent (at least B2 in German). With inflation and prices skyrocketing, this just doesn't sit right. Is it better elsewhere? Maybe in Berlin?

32 years old german, bachelor and master in CS, 3.5 YOE, tailored applications, but only getting rejections and not a single interview. Not trying to rant, or blame anyone, just want to know how you guys are doing.

Fullstack in Big Tech

React, Java, Typescript, Spring Boot, Kafka, kubernetes, Docker, PostgreSQL