From my experience so far (cs/ee, software developer): work experience is more important than grades, current tech stack, interested/knowledgeable in what you're doing, networking (xing/linkedin helped quite a lot), bigger company for the first role also helped with salary. started out with about 58k (~13.8 salaries + bonus + >40 vacation days), quickly went up to around 80k (2yrs)

Thanks a lot for the answer! By networking on xing/linkedin you mean that you were reaching out to people? Asking for positions?

Nope actually just being on there (with a current profile) helped a lot. Currently at least here in Germany there are a _lot_ of open positions in my field. At the moment I (as well as other colleagues I talk to) get multiple requests a week. There are a lot of uninteresting ones, but still..

Also: What's mentioned here: https://thehftguy.com/2017/01/23/career-advice-and-salary-ne...