I'm saying TAXES are extremely high. Getting paid €80k/yr before taxes in Munich is a bad joke, but is unfortunately where the market is. Many people are living that bad joke. -- Stop disagreeing with me, please, when there really is no disagreement here.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sounds like I was disagreeing with you. May I ask how did you get a remote position in Germany?

By working for a remote-only company that's based out of the U.S. but allows people to live anywhere they want globally. Whenever I get contacted by a German-based headhunter working for a German company, I tell them that I'm perfectly willing to talk, but only if it's going to be a remote position and that they (the headhunters) need to do more to educate their clients on the benefits of remote. -- But I might as well be talking to a wall when I do that. It's just not happening.

I've found that German-based companies are perfectly willing to pay 2x - 3x for an onsite freelancer than they would pay for an onsite employee, but they just don't do remote.

Since U.S.-based remote-only companies don't pay nearly as well as U.S.-based companies doing onsite - in my experience[!] -, this means that I could actually be earning more by doing onsite freelancing for German companies than doing remote for U.S. companies, but if you factor in the time & money for commuting and the increased cost of living from spending a lot of time in the cities where German companies offering interesting opportunities tend to be based, my disposable income/rate of savings, purchasing power, and quality of life are actually all better by doing remote.

That matches my experience with recruiters in Austria exactly where if you ask about being allowed to work remotely, most will give you a look like you just insulted their mothers.

The thing about recruiters you gotta keep in mind is, they're not your friends and they're not here to help you land your dream job. You're just a meal ticket to them and they just want to find some sucker to quickly fill the position as they're in competition with the other recruiters so whoever gets the position filled first gets paid, the others are left hanging. If you start making demands that the employers don't want to hear like remote work, they'll realize you're not a sucker and they won't get their money with you so they'll drop you as a candidate all together even if you would be a great fit for the position.

My question to you was how to you proceed to find good remote jobs? Linkedin? HN? Any advice is appreciated. My email is in my profile if you want to go private.

According to the UBS Real Estate Bubble Index 2019 [0], Munich is the city with the highest property bubble risk...So your perception of "Fells like a place with Bay Area prices but without the pay" holds some truth.

[0]: https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth-management/chief-invest...