Pssst… don’t work for “tech” companies in big German cities - work for old-school manufacturing firms in second-tier metro areas like Nürnberg and Braunschweig. Salaries are close to Munich/Berlin, housing is much closer to sane (but still rather fizzy at the moment, buy with caution!), and they’re grasping for any data scientist or DevOps engineer they can get ahold of (among others). German competence is a plus, but the only mandatory thing is that you show a willingness to learn some.

Advantage of old-school manufacturing IT/dev jobs in Germany: the ones paying less than about 90k EUR are covered by the IG-Metall union rules - 35/40 hour workweek (depending on your contract) that your employer is terrified of letting you exceed, plus 30 days vacation.

My dream is working in a eastern Germany city like Halle/Saale, Jena or better yet Thangermunde, Stendal or other of those tiny towns with great communication infrastructure. All this while working remotely for a good tech company.

The amount of cheap land and beautiful spaces in those ex-communist eastern German towns (Sachsen Anhalt) in amazing . I did research around those towns years ago, and got to know a lot of empty beautiful places.

I am guessing you are a white guy. I personally know friends who got attacked with knife in Dresden.

That's sad. Yeah racism is terrible in that part of Germany. I think magdeburg is horrible.

I'm pretty far from white haha. I'm a Mexican living in Mexico. I'm not dark brown, but deeefinitely look Latino. My wife is dark brown though.

We had an ok time while we lived in Germany. But we deffo got our share of racism . Nothing violent fortunately.

I'd exchange that with the sad/crazy violence state that my country is at though. Constant fear...

Munich is top 3 in most expensive German cities. Still, German city hubs are comparatively cheaper than those in other countries (e.g. Amsterdam, Paris, London, Barcelona) and with 60k€ you're around top 30% in Germany. I post these statistics just to say that other western european countries arent better than Germany in these regards. Also, I don't agree with the assignment that the salaries are a joke; it's just that the inequality in salaries is not as big as in America or elsewhere. Yes, this means that highly qualified people don't earn gangbusters (well, you could if you go freelancer) but this works for as long as there's no (significant) brain drain to other countries, which probably there is not as Germans like Germany. So, what I'm saying is that the "low" salaries are in a way the price for Germany being a nice place to live in.

Median household income in the US in 2019 was 62,400 EUR (69,560 USD). Median software developer salary in the US was 98,800 EUR (110,100 USD), and the US is known to be uniquely and grossly lucrative for software developers compared to the rest of the world. Considering 60k EUR per year individual income to be too little is a very SF tech area thing to say. As a mechanical engineer in Canada, I cannot relate to that at all.

And yet, in much cheaper Poland and even further much cheaper Ukraine software engineers easily make the same or higher amount. There is a popular topic on Ukrainian language developers forum dou.ua where they laugh about European IT salaries, exposing the obvious truth that living standards of developers there are several times lower than in Ukraine, and in the Valley, they are at best the same.

That said, it's quite likely that Putin will have the last laugh.

I can't really believe that devs in the ukraine make as much as in germany.

Why would then work a lot of devs here? Cost of living is a fraction there.

Because the outsourcing industry is really advanced there... People just figured how to make money off foreigners. Typical salary for someone who is minimally capable of independently working (not senior level) is $4500 a month net. Rent is $400 a month, utilities are invisibly tiny (which isn't a surprise for a country with around $300 median salary). Developers have full time servants, gardeners, drivers etc., all in the middle of Europe.

But, surely there is a terrible infrastructure and the country is in the slow-baking civil war and permanently on the brink of foreign invasion...

If you pay a dev as much as in Germany, how are the supposed to offer cheaper services if also the agency takes a bige cut?

No one would nearshore work If it's not cheaper then at home.

Because they outsource to the U.S., and for the U.S. customer there is no difference between Germany or Ukraine. In Ukraine they also pay a lot less (if any) taxes than they do in Germany. Plus, you can exploit people more in Ukraine for sure (they are happy anyway because they routinely get 20x the median income in their area, by the age of 40 it's typical to be independently rich and exit active work).

And no, these services are not 'cheaper' - people who want it cheaper, hire Indian companies.

Then why hire them instead of local devs?

Local devs or local dev company? In which country? In Germany they just won't find one. There are few good devs and almost no good outsourcers. Way more in Ukraine and there is an established ecosystem - there are even "accelerators" and "incubators" for outsourcer companies. In the U.S.? Because U.S. companies will never do actual coding in the U.S. - they only have U.S. front offices. Many of these "local" companies are actually Ukrainian, with a few guys in the Valley and 500 in Kharkiv.

As for local devs, then well, of course reason is the same as why dev companies exist at all: clients don't know how to manage the project or properly hire devs.

Munich is very expensive for German standards. 60k gross is not a lot of money there.

Zurich or SF are still on a different level of course.

They are comparing it to the housing costs, not just abstractly calling it too little.

True but 1,800€ for a good appt. is amazingly cheap. I live in Tel-Aviv and here you'd be lucky to get anything for under 2,000EUR. There's no public transport other than buses so getting anywhere is a nightmare. Cost of living is through the roof. Especially essentials like food etc.

SF is MUCH worse. Healthcare there will kill you. It's easy to complain but things suck everywhere and the cost of living is rising all over. This is because of interest rates and commercialization of land ownership.

Finding solace by comparing oneself against outliers has never seemed to me to be a good strategy

You sure are picking very specific items from whole immigrating-to-another-country experience.

People who emigrate purely for money tend to end up miserable from my experience. Since you mention Poland it gets into ridiculous territory - its a joke of democracy, extremely religious to the point when its not even fun to joke about. That part alone would make me leave for better places. And there are many more reasons to leave, mostly unfixable in one's lifetime.

A week doesn't go by when I don't read about some horror story from Poland about pregnant woman dying due to hospital refusing to remove surgically fetus which died in her due to archaic religious laws, ending up predictably with sepsis and complete failure of organs. Women doing illegal abortions in shady places which end up in their deaths. 3rd world country proper. Utterly corrupted, and properly fucked up country just like its neighbors (I know since I was born in one of them and went countless times to Poland).

The salary disparities in metropoles you mention are true mostly anywhere in developed world, and certainly true in eastern Europe at this point (Bratislava, Prague, Budapest etc.).

If you plan kids its a nobrainer - every parent wants best for their children, and raising them in such society gives them already such a bad start in life. Yeah, i would take Munich above any place in Poland or countries around anytime.

Paying 1/3 in after tax income on rent is generally considered affordable. In the US I have gone well past that threshold. It’s why having roommates in cities is so common.

If you are in tech, it's not common to need a roommate outside the few super high cost of living cities in the US. Many of my SoCal friends have roommates, but none of my Dallas or Atlanta friends do (of course you can have roommates if you want, but at around <30% rent on income, it's not really required in most cases).

It also depends on how recently you graduated and how much commute you’re willing to have. I like walking to work which often means much higher rent.

A bit disingenuous to complain that the most expensive city is expensive. Just move somewhere else.

Also, that equation changes completely if you have a family and kids and don't need to shell out (or save for) annual 5-6 digit day care or private school / college funds.

Germany is a big place, you don't need to live in Munich.

I have a pretty comfortable life here compared with what I could ever achieve in Portugal, no need to dream with FAANG salaries.

Are software salaries even lower in Portugal?

Or is it that there are simply no companies/jobs/growth?

(also - doesnt the German weather get u down?)

You will be getting around 1000 euros netto straight out of university, with 14 month pay (christmas + summer packages).

If you happen to do consulting to the major groups (telecommunications, banking, insurances, international brands like OutSytems,...) your salary will top around 2000 netto, unless you move into management.

Those values are per month, and any fellow countryman/woman can gladly correct me for more up to date values.

And that is when one was lucky to take an university degree and land a job on the degree's area, the minimum wage should be around 400 euros nowadays.

Also you will also have the typical southern Europe culture that things get done when they are done, and in some sweatshops working conditions can be quite bad, and since not everyone can live on the main cities, sometimes that is the only software job in the area, so better not push it.

Yes the weather isn't the best, however in northern Portugal we do happen to have a similar weather, and without central heating (unless you happen to live in very recent buildings from the last 20 years), otherwise common heaters and fireplace.

Also the German region where I happen to live can have nice Summers as well.

Out of curiousity, why do you think the salaries have been so low in Germany? For certain sectors I can imagine outsourcing has occurred to lower wage jurisdictions in Central/Eastern Europe, so maybe that has put some downward pressure on salary growth - but what about localised professions, like blue collar jobs etc? Or is it just generally white collar wages that are not that high?

The question is rather why software salaries are so high in USA. That is the real anomaly.

Because US tech companies are the most successful in the world and there is an immense demand for workers located in US-friendly time zones. It's simple market economics. I wouldn't be surprised if there is more demand for highly skilled tech workers in California alone than any other country in the world.

Equality is much higher in europe then the US.

It's the same for lawyers, doctors etc.

Cities in the US can be very steep too. I have a ~50 sq meter apartment that runs ~€3000 in Boston. When I lived in Germany, my salary was about half what it is here in the States. Taxes are much lower, my effective tax rate is closer to ~25% (state and local) than the 42% in Germany plus the 5% Soli.

You only pay 42% for anything above 57,000€. Germany does have progressive income tax.

Literally every "skilled immigrant" is supposedly earning 57k or more. Everything else is a strategic move to keep salaries low. So, evey skilled migrant looking to work harder and more is going to get taxed almost half of that effort plus social constributions (up to the limit) and soli (still exists). There are tax-free allowances like in night shift bonuses, but those apply not to most workers. The base tax exempted income is much too low as well. Should be at least double the current 10k or so.

No, you don't understand progressive taxation. You pay 0% on your first 10,000€, then a few percent for the next 12,000€ and so on.

In 2021 in Germany for an income of 60,000€ you need to pay 11,735€ income tax, roughly 19.5%. there is also no soli tax anymore unless you are earning a top-2% income.

I understand very well as I'm German.

Anybody who is usefully skillful and economically useful will be earning north of 57k. Anybody who is all that and earning less than the equivalent German is a means to keep salaries low. There is an oversupply of cheap labour fuelling the Niedriglohnsektor already.

That also means that high-performing individuals with an already appropriately high base income will be paying 42% on any € pay increase, which is not a good incentive to make people work more and/or more stressful and/or more highly skilled jobs /in Germany/. Why here, if you can be highly skilled and high earning in Switzerland and be able to achieve a multiple of net income and get a better pension system to boot?

I don't think the salaries are a bad joke, but if you bring that point up, also compare how worker rights etc. are a bad joke in the U.S.

Whatever salary you get here, you will get a much more secure life than the equivalent (inflated) salary in the U.S. gives you.

You're right, an easy fix for this is to live and work outside of metropolitan areas where you get the same standard of living for a fraction of the cost.

Big name US tech companies pay much higher salaries than typical for software engineers in Munich. Just browse https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&c...

And they are a tiny fraction of german tech jobs.

I find the tone of entitlement a bit hard to take. Yes, cities like Munich have a huge structural problem with housing and rent. Solutions are unfortunately hard. But it’s a problem for locals just as much as it is for immigrants.

And of course Poland is a nice place to live as well, why do you make that sound like it’s a bad thing? It almost sounds as if you’re regretting some personal decisions, and are now blaming the country you moved to for not living up to unrealistic expectations.

Please make your substantive points without crossing into personal attack, which degrades discussion and evokes worse from others.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I am not from Poland. Some colleagues were. They did careful calculations and went home.

Do you see any viable solution how to end yearly 5% rent increase in Munich? I don’t. There’s enough empty land around the city in all directions.

> Do you see any viable solution how to end yearly 5% rent increase in Munich?

Don't live and work in Munich?

> I am not from Poland. Some colleagues were. They did careful calculations and went home.

So what? Poland isn't a third world country by any stretch of the imagination. There's no law of nature that living in Warsaw must be worse than living in Munich.

Why arent developers building more ?

Is it zoning? Need for infra structure ?

Why is demand increasing in Munich?

Because lots of companies move there and the ones that are already here generaly do well.

And of course there is a general trend of (younger) people moving to the cities (ofc less now because of covid).