Ask HN: Germany vs. Canada for Tech Jobs?
I'm 25M from India and looking into settling in either Berlin or Toronto to build my career in tech. I'm not considering the US because of its visa issues.
Both Berlin and Toronto seem to have some tech scene going on. Cost of living in Toronto is quite high compared to Berlin. It seems it'll be easier to save money in Berlin to work towards financial independence.
On the other hand, tech companies in Canada pay peanuts and the high cost of living leaves quite a small amount to save each month. However, once a Canadian citizen, there is a possiblity to get transferred to a Silicon Valley arm of a US company from Canada (using the TN visa) and hence receive a higher compensation.
How would you compare between the two countries for building a career in tech for an immigrant?
188 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 263 ms ] threadI saw a bunch of new accounts spamming their Keybase proof in all the wrong places. Maybe HN did something to combat the spam and it accidentally hit your account.
Try contacting them at hn@ycombinator.com
Don't forget that you want to visit your family in India. I think in Germany you typically get more vacation. Also consider the flight time. Berlin is much closer to India than Toronto.
An interesting non-standard choice for a country to immigrate to is Japan. Tokyo is a fun place with lots of foreigners. Applying for a visa is quick and reasonable, which is the complete opposite of US.
I found that after you have a certain amount in your bank account, you become one of those annoying rich people who tell others that money doesn't give you happiness and there other important things in life.
I don't know much about job market, but I met many expats working as software engineers and they didn't speak any Japanese.
Still I would not recommend coming to Japan unless it was a life goal. This is not an easy country to live in or build wealth in. Both the language and career will be playing life on hard mode. I love it here, but it was a life goal I was willing to trade for.
It sounds to me like the rat race. Being a king with a million dollars sucks. Being a peasant with a million dollars is amazing.
That said from my experience I see 7 years as a cut off point where expats start to leave the city. If you are quite confident that you’ll stay >7 years or even consider other cities in Germany start learning German ASAP :)
A believe that's usually translated as "All Quiet on the Western Front"
The main reason why I gave up on German classes is that it is simply too much of an investment with very little benefit to my especially that I am not a 100% sure I want to stay in Germany. What also bugs me is that in a city/country that is in dire need for knowledge works yet seems unfriendly towards non-German-speaking immigrants, at least from the authority offices.
> __That said from my experience I see 7 years as a cut off point where expats start to leave the city__
Spot on.
I showed up knowing some German because my mother is German. My fluency only improved marginally in the time I was there because most Germans I met spoke English and were thrilled to have the opportunity to practice their English with a native speaker, so I was actively denied opportunities to improve my German because they would promptly begin speaking English to me.
When we did day trips to do touristy stuff, it was helpful that I knew more German than most Americans there. I carried a German-English dictionary with me and looked up words I saw on signs. (You can now do that much easier on a smartphone.)
It may actually be nigh impossible to learn German, even if you want to. I wanted to, so badly. Almost no one would speak it with me.
I am still not fluent in German and it would be too hard to get there via intentional self study to be worth the effort to me. It should have been vastly easier to learn through immersion while living there, but almost no one would speak German with me in Germany.
It quite aggravated me. In my youth, I wanted to be a translator and I wanted to learn seven languages fluently. I know a smattering of German, French, Greek, Spanish and Russian (and took French and classical Greek in college). I'm not fluent in any of them.
I've turned my attention to learning languages like HTML and CSS. I'm not fluent in them either, but they are infinitely more useful to me in day-to-day life.
In Berlin I found a tandem partner who grew up under the DDR and spoke Russian instead of English which is how I practised.
Something I also found is that if you start off speaking English with someone, it is nearly impossible to change your relationship into a German one, whereas if you start off speaking German, it seems to reoccur again in the future.
It's like your first impression cements which language you're associated with.
Berlin is mixed. The younger generation does speak english, but you can not expect the bus driver to understand you.
The trick is to be direct about that you want to speak German. Germans are direct, it's not impolite. "Entschuldigen Sie, können wir Deutsch sprechen? Ich muss es üben." will get the majority to switch to German.
And if you have German friends and they know you've been in Germany now for a longer period, and some stage they'll decide "Jetzt muss sie aber wirklich mal Deutsch lernen" and start to speak exclusively German to you.
The "I am polite and speaking English" thing is usually only applied to strangers.
I got to practice a little at my first apartment. It was a downstairs unit and the rest of the building was the home of my landlord. It was a tiny farm village about twenty minutes from the American post.
I broke the lease and moved because my baby was very sick there. My next apartment was a four story building, but all the tenants were American. Then I finally got quarters and the entire neighborhood was American with American services (grocery store, daycare, gas station).
I actively tried to shop at German stores and things like that. It turned out to not be practical. It made more sense to shop at the American stores.
We needed living room furniture. We went downtown to shop. It was all giant shranks.
It didn't provide the kind of storage we needed, it was out of our price range and I knew that taking it home to the US would be a bad idea. We mostly needed shelves for books. German apartments have fewer closets and windows than American homes, so they have long expanses of wall. Shranks are designed to work in that kind of housing.
When you take a shrank back to America, you can't easily find housing that will hold it. A friend of mine had a custom house built in the US to get a wall to fit her shrank. I went house hunting with my sister. We looked at a house where they added a room -- with a stupidly long hallway just for that room -- to hold their German shrank. They were selling the shrank with the house. The listing said "shrank remains with house."
So, disappointed, we returned to base and bought American bookshelves. It made far more sense.
We did day trips on the weekends to visit castles. This is a tourist activity. It's not conducive to long conversations with locals.
I visited my best friend when she was in Germany visiting her relatives. She and I stayed up late talking to catch up -- in English, of course. She spoke fluent German, but we hadn't seen each other in some time and wouldn't again for sometime. She didn't invite me over to teach me German. It made no sense to try to speak German together. We were together to get caught up. English made more sense.
I took scuba diving with a German company. They spoke much better English than I did German. I was still breastfeeding. It made no sense for me to join everyone for a beer after class at a local pub. I couldn't drink and I needed to get home to my baby. It ended up being too exhausting and I dropped out of the class even though they had a no refund policy.
All my efforts to connect with people in settings where I should have had more exposure to German basically went nowhere.
I could make small talk with waiters at restaurants or whatever, but I just wasn't finding myself in social settings where it made sense for others to expect me to make the effort to really engage in serious conversation in German.
I'm leaving this comment as food for thought for other people who may be considering living elsewhere and/or desire to learn another language. I might have learned more German had I continued to live in a tiny farm village where no one spoke English, but I couldn't do that because it was making my baby sick. All other social settings I found myself in failed to foster conversation in German.
If you do what makes sense to make your life work, you may just not have that many opportunities to practice German, even while living in Germany. Luck and circumstance are factors, but I was actively seeking to escape the American bubble I lived in and get out into the local culture and largely failing to find opportunities to talk with people conversationally in German. I already knew enough German to help make tourist activities easier for us to navigate. That doesn't result in conversational fluency.
I spent years listening to tapes in one lang...
That said I am amazed to say I agree that you don't need to learn German to survive in Berlin. I lived in Berlin 2005-2006 and learned German while there. I think that not knowing German at the time often made things extremely difficult. Even many of my highly-educated university friends were quite bad at English. But now when I go back and visit English is just plain everywhere. It's weird now how easy it is to live in your bubble and never really need to learn German. And it is true that now you will need to push learning the language yourself when presented with so many opportunities to speak English.
Whether or not to learn the local language is of course a personal choice, but I still feel like it's something you should do.
That said my assumptions are that OP wants to live in Berlin, is a young tech worker who does not envision today that he stays in Germany for more than 7 years.
> That said my assumptions are that OP wants to live in Berlin, is a young tech worker who does not envision today that he stays in Germany for more than 7 years.
I guess we are just different. And since it's a personal value judgement there really isn't any right answer. I just couldn't imagine living somewhere for 7 years and not wanting to learn the local language. I can't even imagine living somewhere for a few months without making an attempt at it. I agree that your examples (1)-(3) are important, but I consider learning the local language and culture as an investment in your life and experience. It may not have global utility, but I find that totally irrelevant since you are not living "globally" you're living in Berlin.
Anyway I find it interesting to hear your opinion. At this point I guess we'll just have to let the OP decide what's important.
Canada is a great place to immigrate too, I would also explore Montreal, it has more of a research/AI/gaming scene but the cost of living is lower than Toronto. Don't know about the salaries, I would investigate!
Tech scene is smaller, of course, but there's lots going on. I can definitely recommend living here, especially if you're into art or music.
Contract rates can be anywhere between 500€ (6+ months contract for a relatively inexperienced freelancer) to 1200€/day for specific and short-term gigs. Grossly speaking you need to charge twice your desired net salary in order to cover all the mandatory contributions, taxes and the risk factor.
Depending on what you're getting away from, Berlin is definitely worth it. A few things are hard, but all-in-all it's a great place to live. Germany still wants tech workers, look in to the Blue Card - they make your process/life so much easier if you qualify.
Some of the social system is fantastic (sick leave, parental leave, etc)
I'm happy to pay my 50%.
edit: to say that at this salary bracket, looking around, I'm very privileged. It's ridiculous that that'd be a minimum for anyone.
The job market in Geneva isn't super exciting anyway. But even in Lausanne, Bern, ... you should end up paying a lot less taxes and contributions than in Germany. I believe only Belgium has a higher tax wedge than Germany. And at least in Switzerland I can see my tax money being invested in the infrastructure.
Young kids are expensive in Switzerland if both parents work. But assuming one parent stays at home, 120k is enough to live a comfortable life.
Then if you're in embedded as per your profile, there are just so many more opportunities in the South of Germany, I'm not sure it makes sense.
I am in embedded, but doing more and more Linux C++ programming for my personal projects. I hope, I can transfer from embedded to “normal” software engineering in foreseeable future.
Plus about every fresh grad hired at the IG Metall Tarif, they're definitely not starting at a mere 40k.
There already is a public pension system, that should cover the biggest part of the pension. Saving anything beyond public the public pension system is taxed like normal capital yields. Capital yields are taxed as 26% or the tax rate of the normal income tax, whichever is lower.
> dental problems and modern procedures you must pay by yourself.
Basic dental healthcare is included (biannual checkups, fillings, getting teeth pulled, ...). I don't know what you mean with modern procedures that don't get paid. Healthcare pays everything that's medically necessary and some stuff on top (e.g. the contraceptive pill is included until you're 22).
> I also wouldn’t accept offer under €70k in Berlin. Of course, it’s doable with €45k, but I am not sure if it’s worth all migration effort. Fresh graduates start with €55k nowadays.
That seems a bit high in my experience, especially as Berlin is one of the areas with lower pay.
As you write “basic healthcare” is included. For advanced stuff you pay by yourself.
€30k is Aldi cashier’s salary in Southern Germany. But Blue Card has also very low limit, €42€: https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/newsroom/buergerservice-f...
What is this "advanced stuff" you're talking about. With public health insurance in Germany you'll get open-heart surgery for free if you need one.
The only thing you won't be getting is "just-for-looks" type of treatments e.g. breast implants, white implants at the back of your mouth etc..
I think new graduates may make less than 55k, but salaries are going up and 70k for an offer with 2-3 years of experience isn't uncommon (although it will likely be closer to 60-65k).
This is because:
- Canadians are happy to accept whatever wages they are given (the "smart" Canadians move to the US to get higher salaries)
- immigrants to Canada are happy to accept whatever wages they are given
With those two factors, you're not going to make a lot of money in Toronto unless you're working a US company (Google, Amazon, and so on) and even then it'll be less than US counter-parts.
Berlin is a better choice because you can easily travel around Europe and there are more markets. It's also a faster flight back to India if you're visiting family.
>However, once a Canadian citizen, there is a possiblity to get transferred to a Silicon Valley arm of a US company from Canada (using the TN visa) and hence receive a higher compensation.
This is what I'm talking about. The employer will dangle this prize in front of you for as long as they can and will continue to hold off on promotions and keep your salary the same for as long as possible. This is why Canadian salaries remain low, because there will be another sucker that comes along and will also be offered the same "we'll give you a promotion in a few years!" or "we'll transfer you to the US soon! very very soon!" line and they'll accept it.
>How would you compare between the two countries for building a career in tech for an immigrant?
Is immigration required? Because if not, all you need is a good internet connection, a good computer, and knowledge lots and lots of knowledge to distinguish your skills from others and get the higher freelancing rates.
Slowly changing. The US companies are going to pick up all the talent here.
I work with deep learning, and with ~2 years of experience >125k CAD base is a rare find.
Supply and demand. If you're going to compare salaries, look at the number/density of tech companies in the area and the value generation. SV corporations setup offices here in Toronto, but the pay doesn't match up because it doesn't have to. Competition for talent is not as fierce.
There are single buildings in SV that host more "elite" software engineers than other entire cities (how many thousand engineers at a single location like Google/Apple's HQ? What native equivalents does Canada have? It used to be RIM/Blackberry, but now its what, Shopify? The scale matters.)
You're misattributing quality of wages to people being ignorant of their own value, but what you should be attributing it to is plain labour economics.
After 3 years of being a permanent resizent you can apply for citizenship, and getting one is pretty easy if you work in tech. Companies don't really have that much of leverage on you, especially in comparison with US with a dangling carrot of H1Bs and green cards.
Interesting. I had the impression food in supermarkets wasn't __that__ expensive compared to Berlin. Restaurants were noticeably more expensive. For what it's worth, I thought the food quality in Stockholm was a lot better than in Germany.
From a recent comparison Stockholm is more expensive, but cost of living has more than that, using numbeo [0] I see that utilities and childcare are significantly more expensive in Berlin and this link [1] I can also see that health care is more expensive in Berlin.
A month public transport ticket costs almost the same (890 SEK vs 81 Euro) and I think the the Stockholm one covers more distance.
As for market size I don't know how big the difference is since I guess there are simply more people in Berlin to compensate for the increased number of companies. From personal and friend's experience I have never seen any problem finding work during the last years.
[0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
[1] https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/health-insurance-germany/
In which city? both?
According to this, salaries for software engineers are about the same in Berlin and Toronto (about 0.55 of Silicon Valley salaries).
I think it's hard to compare two countries like this. There's a lot more than just the objective differences--it's easy to be miserable in an objectively "better" country.
I am absolutely miserable in Germany. I don't have a particularly good reason to be; I just hate it. It simply disagrees with me, even though--objectively--Germany is a better place to live than many of the other countries I lived in.
My advice is apply for jobs in both countries. Get on-site interviews, and go to Toronto and Berlin. It's important that you see for yourself, so you can really make an informed decision.
The bit you wrote about transferring to Silicon valley, etc seems premature to me. You don't really know what you'll be doing in the future: neither choice here is bad. Choose which seems the best now, unless you have a specific, realistic goal for the future that one option enables better than the other. But without that: go to both cities and just see what you like.
Comparing salaries is also premature: you don't even have offers yet. It's all just conjecture. If both cities are serious contenders for you, apply to jobs in both and see.
(Besides, German CS salaries are definitely nothing to write home about either. And many things in Germany are more expensive: cars, gas, electricity, basically all consumer goods, etc)
I spent various parts of my childhood in Germanic countries and was going through a difficult time then as a kid. I think I've been unable to separate that time from my perception/understanding of Germanic countries and that that has a lot to do with it as well.
Atleast, that's my interpretation of what I've been told. It's a little what English Canada felt to me now that I've moved to French Canada. It's safe and fine but nothing's really happening. Your relationships aren't going anywhere; your career is basically about paying an oversized mortgage.
1) More indians in toronto more food and less likely to fee lonely 2) Make more in EU but costs other than housing are more 3) Easier to start a company in Canada 4) Easier to fit in culturally in Canada 5) Too many immigrants to Toronto make competition killer 6) Need a car
So you pay California-style cost of living without the California salary.
I like living here and I like my job, but I wouldnt recommend it to somebody starting out.
Go to Germany.
They're foreigner friendly, immigration is straightforward albeit bureaucracy sucks. Quality of life is head and shoulders above. Food is better. People are nicer. Employers don't dick you around. Housing is cheap.
As a "visible minority", life in Toronto and Vancouver is less stressful than it is in USA or Edmonton. Also your dating life will be better in Toronto. If you plan to have a family and kids, you don't have to worry about school shootings -- this is now a thing parents worry about in USA. Your parents can visit you and getting a visitor visa is not a pain.
Of course taxes are higher and take home pay is lower than in USA and the rent is too damm high. But somehow your quality of life will be better here. People are more chill here than in USA (my experience is limited to NY/NJ) and I will bet you already have someone you know who has relative living in Canada. So loneliness will not be an issue.
Also, you can start your own business as soon as you get permanent residency. in USA, a green card could take upto 12 years. In Canada , you will get it in 3 years at most. And when you start contracting as an independent , you will make a whole lot more.
I have never been to Berlin but I hope to visit it one day. I have German friends and they are wonderful people.
This is true and more true if you're freelancing for US dollars. That sweet sweet conversion rate from USD to CAD works very well. But again this is why Europe is a better choice, Euros to USD or Euros to CAD whenever you want to travel is also a nice conversion rate.
Do you mean consulting in Europe. How hard/easy is it to find consulting gigs in Europe without knowing the language.
In Canada you can get PR on the day you arrive.
From what I can see, salaries are diverse. It is possible make decent money even in Berlin. English is usually not a problem in Berlin. In some companies English is default. Knowing a bit of German helps of course.
Consider Hamburg too, salaries are better there and it is more secure.
I love my country, but high taxes, housing bubble, stagnant salaries, horrible choices when it comes to political candidates...
I will say the healthcare is great, and the people are generally awesome (to a lesser degree in Toronto though).
Salary ranges are still the same since a decade ago even though cost of living has gone up.
My first job as a full-time dev was $65k rent was $1500 or thereabouts, I'm sure there are first-time devs making $65k now. Even though rent is now $2000 at least for the same place I was living at.
After tax income is $49,190 (https://simpletax.ca/calculator) and rent went from $18,000 to $24,000. As a percentage of after-tax income that's going from 36.6% to 48.8%. The rent would have made me poorer if I hadn't changed jobs!
Lots of places in Canada other than Toronto, LOTS, that aren't impacted by the mentions you mention.
Berlin is a life changing city, once you are there you may see life differently. You may end up getting a small programming job then being a DJ in evenings. You cannot go to Berlin with a plan, Berlin will re-planify you. While the tech scene is going up (specially during recent years because of blockchain startups) access to money and VCs are far limited. On top of that although English is ok in Berlin but if don't speak German, competing with local people is hard.
Moved here from Vancouver and it's totally where I'm rooted now.
I haven't lived in Toronto but I imagine it's a lot greyer of a city with a deep hustle, work>life mentality. Not to mention the unaffordable living.
Despite recent price hikes Berlin remains a remarkably inexpensive western major-city.
Canadian costs of living are high, and the salaries are low compared to the states, but they’re still some of the better non-American tech salaries out there.
Meanwhile I work in Essen with a lot of cheap housing in and around the city for 75k. And I'm just your everyday non-senior "DevOps Engineer".
If possible, I recommend you take a trip to both cities and see what you like more. Spend a week in each, and maybe try to go to Toronto in the winter to see if you like it. Berlin has mild winters and doesn't get much snow, but Toronto can have harsh winters. Summers in Toronto can be hot and humid, which you might be used to already (since you said you're from India).
The biggest advantage to Toronto over Germany is the proximity to major US cities. Like it or not, most of the "tech innovation" is centred in the US.
Also don't count on the TN (which is not a visa, btw) sticking around forever. If your main reason for going to Canada is border mobility, you're probably better off staying in Europe. An EU citizen can live and work anywhere in the EU. Canada and the US have a close relationship, but NAFTA (which is where the TN comes from) could be gutted whenever the politicians decide that's what will get them reelected.
All things considered, if I were in your position (knowing what I know) I'd go to Berlin. It's more trendy, has better public transit, milder weather, and Europe has much more culture to explore and learn about than Canada (sorry).
I'm from the UK and Berlin's winters were harsh for me :).
"Real" Canadian winter happens in places you won't find many tech jobs anyway.
Salaries are the same. Huge Indian community in Toronto from all Indian provinces so that may factor in. As someone who lives in Toronto Germany sounds like more fun.
No matter where you choose you'll be fine. But if US is the goal go to Canada.
Berlin has an amazing cultural scene. If you care about things like art, music, theatre — then Berlin will never, ever bore you. Also if you like bars! And South-East Asian food!
The tech scene in Berlin is very startup-focused, and the pay is not great. There are people who move to Berlin to make money, and there’s a lot of money to be made, but those people don’t have 9-to-5 jobs slinging code. You will be ludicrously underpaid compared to Frankfurt, much less London, much less San Francisco — but aside from the high rents, which can be really tough and require a lot of flexibility which you hopefully have at 25, you will have a very high quality of life.
Berlin is also a working-class city behind the vibrant cultural scene. If you like that, and you learn German, you can easily make friends from the “real Germany” or you can hang out with hipsters all the time if you prefer that. Berlin has both.
As others have noted, immigration is very straightforward, but you do need a lawyer and (obviously) a job offer. The path to citizenship is also straightforward.
Interestingly, there aren’t that many Indians in Berlin, or at least I would say I see more Indians on the street in Budapest than in Berlin, and I would probably have expected the opposite. There’s probably an “Indian scene” in Berlin but there definitely isn’t good Indian food. In Berlin the “Asians” are mostly from Vietnam.
One thing you should think seriously about if you’re looking at settling in Germany is Munich. Munich is where the higher-paying tech jobs are. Less startup culture, more good old fashioned German profit-making actual legitimate business culture. Google, Apple, Microsoft — these companies have a much bigger presence in Munich than in Berlin.
There is still quite a bit of specialization in German cities. Publishing? Hamburg. Finance? Frankfurt. Cars? Munich, or Stuttgart and environs. Basically if you want to live a dynamic and interesting and vibrant life, and are cool with making less money, go to Berlin. If you want more stability and professionalism go somewhere else. And it’s really easy to travel around Germany by train, plane or automobile, so you can always start in one place and explore others. Check out Darmstadt for example! Amazing art museum! Very very serious tech research scene! Minutes from Frankfurt!
Another thing to consider is that German employment culture revolves around stability. There are lots of opportunities to do weird risky things, but in principle almost everybody thinks the best way to live is to have a good job, do your work, and by the time you’re 30 you have a pretty good idea what your life will be like when you retire at 67. If that’s attractive to you, you’ll probably really love Germany.
And as long as you’re in Berlin or Munich or Hamburg you don’t have to eat German food! :-)
Finally, one thing I think German “tech” doesn’t get enough credit for: there is a lot of very serious engineering done in Germany but it’s not the “Uber for X” variety — it’s mostly based around existing, real-world technical challenges, usually involving physical machines of some kind. If things like self-driving cars or factory automation or building a better hammer attract you more than “Social network for cats” then you’ll probably really like German engineering culture.
It's said that Germany has almost 50% of the world's 'hidden champion' companies (revenue less than 5 Billion Euros, unknown to the public, market leader in a niche domain globally (among the biggest three) or leader at the home continent). People coming from the outside might overlook these companies. More than 1300 hidden champions are distributed all over Germany, often in rural areas and acting globally (examples: Herrenknecht for tunnel boring machines or Lürssen for superyachts). Germany in general is a very decentralized country with lots of successful small and midsized cities (Examples for large companies: VW headquarter is in Wolfsburg, Audi in Ingolstadt, Adidas in Herzogenaurach, SAP in Walldorf).
https://hbr.org/2017/05/why-germany-still-has-so-many-middle...