Ask HN: How are salaries for senior devs in Berlin at the moment?
Thinking of moving to Berlin for access to a market with better opportunities for software developers.
Background is 5+ years experience in enterprise development roles, docker/K8S/cloud experience included. EU citizen so visa not a problem, also speak German.
What are salaries like at the moment and is it still a good option for developers?
90 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 176 ms ] thread(in my company we describe everything in terms of how many cheeseburgers from a specific restaurant we can buy with the money)
Edit: NVM, netto - got it - it's allright.
so 50k?
what's the point of giving salaries not in netto? it just makes it harder to compare
Providing the gross amount could make it easier to compare internationally.
(Perhaps it would be even better to list net salaries everywhere, but taxes can vary by person, so that's not always possible.)
oh shit
so they don't pay 100k after tax to junior devs?
mamma mia, american dream is ded
But in a state like TN or FL that don’t have that burden, it’s far less. Just for my main FTE in TN for 2020, I paid 12.5k on 150k (I also have 3 kids, so there is some tax credit there).
Its top marginal rate is 2.3% higher than Hawai’is, but also kicks in at almost 3× the taxable income (nearly $600K).
Its rate is lower than Oregon's from where Oregon's top rate kicks in to more than double that income. Its bottom nonzero rate is below the rates of the states that have flat income taxes.
> And I’m guessing some of the bigger cities have city tax as well.
Well, if by “some of the major cities” you mean “the single combined city and county”, sure. But only that one.
So effective net income from a $150k job, barring deductions, in California is $98k (Oregon is virtually identical give or take $100) vs Hawaii at $100k.
If you are in California, say, add about 5500 without 401(k), 4k with so total income tax is 29k, or 22k maxing out tax deferral.
So effective rate is about double what you quote, at least for single filing.
E.g. as a employee people often include taxes and other side costs including rent insurance and health insurance into one blob. On the other hand in the US health insurance is often more costly and covers less.
So just running into some non trivial but not to big health issues can easily make the average cost of living over time worse then in Germany.
But without question the "cost for what you get" value isn't the best in Germany, some EU countries have better ratios, e.g. similar cost but a better health system.
That low of a tax rate would only exist in US states with no state income tax.
It’s the same reason retail prices I’m the US are often stated without sales taxes, a practice that is rare or even illegal in other jurisdictions: taxes sometimes differ even between cities, and it is impossible to state a single value for anything but a specific store.
However if you're willing to do contracting you can make a lot more - there are plenty of full-time, long-term gigs with rates of 80-110/hour.
It's a worthwhile read, but this bit from the start is notable:
> The 2019 Honeypot Amsterdam developer survey says, "the most experienced developers earn an average of €55,000 high as over €70,000". The 2021 Talent.io salary report puts the most experienced software engineering salaries in Amsterdam at €60,000/year. Meanwhile, I've observed the average senior total compensation figures at Uber nearly double from €110,000 in 2015 to €170,000-€230,000/year by 2020. It's not just Uber: Booking.com senior total packages have gone up by 50% from around €100,000 in 2016 to €150,000+, as part of the EU salary research I've been running
But seriously, that's base rate. What's the stock compensation and bonus structure?
I've seen a few company has stock options already. One of my friends has.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/29/germany-to-reform-stock-opti...
But bonuses and other bonus compensation (i.e. offering part ownership in the form of special non-public stocks) aren't.
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Berlin-Ger...
While looking for a mid level position I applied to some senior level positions and it generally boils down to "show me you have the skills and you might have the job".
Furthermore some "senior level" jobs where actually looking for mid level devs.
In the mid level dev segment getting around 50k€ is quite viable. When I was looking for a job multiple offers looking for actual senior backend devs with higher salary where open (through don't ask me for the rang of the salary, I don't remember as I'm not quite at the senior level yet).
Feel free to reach out to me, I have pretty good (current) data on the subject but I'd rather share it privately.
(See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27106893 for some more info.)
https://www.offerzen.com/blog/developer-salaries-across-tech...
US Equivalent is ~USD $180k
(disclaimer: I am the co-founder of this job board)\
In your case, you would be looking at something between: 60'000 and 90'000 EUR.
Taxes are high. You're probably getting slightly less than 4k a month after taxes/insurance. Your apartment/utilities will be around 1200.
I worked in agencies for most of my career. They're more rewarding to work for, and offer great experiences, but if you want money you have to move into the corporate/startup world.
Hard - I don't know which city you're in but £32k is low for a senior role anywhere in the UK. In London that's a low salary for a graduate role.
I'm similarly disheartened when I read people mentioning that £90-120k salaries are fairly common in London (those numbers seem completely our of reach to me) or when I read about salaries in the US.
In London, a smallish 2-bed apartment would rent for £2500/month. So around £32000/year just for somewhere to live. Overall, 2 people living in an apartment within cycling commute of work would spend around £60000/year - not being frugal but not exactly living in luxury either.
There are over 6500 properties with at least two bedrooms listed for rent on Zoopla for less than £1500per month.
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/property/london/?beds_min=2...
If you don’t have kids, get one of the several thousand one bedroom places listed for less than 1k per month.
My first salary as SWE in UK at a bank had a >50K base (60K total comp), second job in finance was 120K base (135K total), and now Google is >180K total comp. All in GBP.
It certainly is possible, but getting into that third modal is probably the hardest bit and will likely involve some leetcode grind and loads of rejected interviews. After your first role, it's relatively smooth smailing (but will still involve leetcode grind every single time).
I’ve snickered at a couple recruiting mails trying to get me to leave my “boring” giant family company’s IT department for a ~30% paycut and “usually under 45 hours” workweek (mine’s currently 35).
I am “in Tariff” - my base salary is determined by the main IG Metall contract for Bavaria. My employer can pay me up to 28% over that base amount based on my annual performance evaluation. If they want to reward me more, they can choose to bump me up a step. If they wish to pay me even more than that, I am then “außer Tariff,” which means they can pay me as much as they like over that higher minimum, and I’m no longer “limited” to a 35/40 hour workweek. Managers in my department are usually AT, but I also have several IC colleagues with 15+ years of SWE experience who are.
TL;DR - Germany values boring; go boring, get paid.
More than that and you probably need to be principal engineer or something like that. Making more than 100K Euro gross in Germany (and probably in most of continental Europe, besides Switzerland) is consider top 5%.