8 ms·

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job tha

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job that you can get (and I know quite some people (in Germany) who work in software development who would love to find a better job). So I personally believe that these people simply could not find a better job with less moral dilemmas.

endymi0n 7y ago
I‘m sceptical. 20 recruiters on my LinkedIn profile per month would disagree. I‘ve turned in my notice more than once in Germany and literally had a job offer a day later.
- qznc 7y ago
  It depends on where you live and if you are willing to move. However, FinFisher seems to be located in Munich and it is easy to find a software developer job in Munich.
  - pablooliva 7y ago
    Agreed. Finding work in Munich or Stuttgart is easy as a software dev. I would imagine the case is the same for most major cities in the country.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      True, there are some curious hotspots for software engineers. If you are tied down by family or friends, you might have to accept a significantly lower pay depending on location. Even if larger enterprises are present locally, they mostly pay less if the local market doesn't offer more. You can do contract work and travel a lot, but that isn't for everyone. Of course the lower pay is still enough to make a good living, but it certainly isn't anywhere near 6-figure jobs.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  It depends. If you're a web dev/full stack maybe. If anything else, maybe not.
fjoetna 7y ago
>you have to take the job that you can get I live in Germany too, and my experience is quiet contrary to yours. Of course you won't always work for a company that "saves the planet", but surely people care about good morals when looking for a job, and some companies even adjust to that. A lot of my former and current colleagues quit jobs just because the companies they were working for were always prioritizing profit over morals, or they declined well paid jobs because they just didn't like the companies general business strategy. Don't get me wrong though: of course you can't be super picky and always get a dream, green, social improvement focused job. That's not how it works. Still: I would never want to work for a company that provides surveillance services for shady regimes.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
BjoernKW 7y ago
It might not be Silicon Valley but the German market for software development services is very much a seller's market, too. In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer).
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer). I was looking for a job in software development for a very long time (region: quite everywhere in Germany or Austria). As of today, I "only" found a job in a very different sector (which is not a bad job, but it hardly has anything to do with software development). And yes, I know quite some people in Germany who also had lots of difficulties finding a job in software development.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Maybe it depends on the type of software development that you want to do? What area is your expertise in?
    - wolfgke 7y ago
      I think I know quite a lot about C and C++ (which means Modern C++ (currently C++17)), but have also worked in a lot of other programming languages (including Python, Java, JavaScript, Erlang (additionally, some further ones for university courses)). Additionally to computer science, I studied mathematics, where I also have a doctorate. I wrote my doctoral thesis about some very tricky questions about geometric structures behind optimization algorithms for discrete optimization problems. In all of these areas (mathematics, computer science, doctorate in mathematics), I either graduated with best possible or second best possible mark. I also claim to know more about IT security than my CV suggests (I got one job interview for a job in this sector, and afterwards the interviewer told me that I have far too much knowledge in this area to be suitable for the available jobs; "you belong into academia"). The same holds, I believe, for embedded programming, where I also think to know quite a lot. Why am I so sure about it? Because as a hobby, I worked on reverse-engineering the firmware of some quite non-trivial embedded device. I also think that I have an immense knowledge of arcane details of the instruction encodings of various CPU architectures, but this is merely a hobby of mine and useless for the job market. -- There exist lots of people who seriously could not understand how I could not find a job as a programmer. For example quite some doctoral classmates (who could find a job in software development) called me a "wandering encyclopedia of the history of computer science". -- As I said: I found a job in a sector that is very different from software development. Just don't tell me that it is easy to find a job in software development; it isn't, even if you are willing to relocate anywhere in Germany or Austria. And I know quite some people who have the same experience.
sudoaza 7y ago
What?? There's lots of job for developers in Berlin, I've been interviewing these last few months and got offers from at least 15 companies
sveme 7y ago
I live in the city of FinFisher (Munich), there's a LinkedIn or Xing recruiter call coming through thrice a week. Your statement might be true in Eisenhüttenstadt, but definitely not in the city where they are located.
- wolfgke 7y ago
  I hardly ever get messages from recruiters on Xing (let's say: once every two months).
rurban 7y ago
It might be a moral dilemma, but mostly it's basic risk mitigation, when you have to work for a company or agency doing illegal or unconstitutional things. In many cases the company will throw you under the bus.
goatinaboat 7y ago
The market is hot if you are a webdev in Berlin but elsewhere in Germany programming is no more in demand than any other technicians job. This may be hard to believe for the SV bubble crowd but this is how it is.
- pluma 7y ago
  Hamburg? Cologne? Munich? If nothing else works, pivot to JavaScript.
lnsru 7y ago
I share your opinion, job market in Germany is a tragedy today. I fully understand people writing shady software for VW group at Bosch, they have no alternatives. Kids want nice vacation, payments for the bank must be done every month. Though I am not software developer, but I get also some recruiter offers every week. I was interested in changing jobs and starting talking to these recruiters. Max offers were at €60k what is a bad joke for Munich. Many offers that start negotiations as employment end as contract for 6 months. Before writing here, that changing jobs in Germany is easy, talk to these “recruiters”. Get other work contract with negotiated salary ~€100k for Munich every week. I doubt this will happen soon again.
- coldtea 7y ago
  So, whether they'd work on making surveillance for totalitarian states was based on whether they'd make $60/k year or $100/k, and afford stuff "nice vacation" for the kids? Doesn't sound like a principled stance. Basically it rounds down to: they would consider a more ethical job, but it's their last priority, well behind a good salary and nice benefits... (It's understandable of course, just not principled)
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    Isn't that fairly rational? The difference between $100k a year and $60k a year is enormous.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      In the sense of self-benefit, yes, it's rational. >The difference between $100k a year and $60k a year is enormous. Principles shouldn't depend on that though. Else "Yeah, I'd help kill kids and kittens for $1m" would also be an acceptable answer. $1m is also enormous compared to $100k. Decent people have made much bigger sacrifices that living with $60K a year for doing the right thing...
      - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
        Principles don't depend on that, but house prices do and if you know the house market in Germany then you'd get it.
esotericn 7y ago
Let me get this straight, the choice is between: a) Take the one job you've been offered right now, in your location, doing evil things b) You and your extended family starve and die Sorry, I'm just not buying it. What actually happens is that people decide that it's convenient to ignore the moral issues for a bit more comfort; basically, they "don't care". There does exist some vanishingly small fraction of people on the boundary of homelessness for which they literally have to do everything to survive. I don't believe that this is a large group in Germany and I doubt anyone intelligent and healthy enough to be a professional software developer is in that group. If you want to maximize earnings, go for it. You're only lying to yourself if you pretend it's the only option, though.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  I think you're making this a little more black and white than it really is. How about a) Take the one job you've been offered right now, in your location, doing evil things b) fail to cover your mortgage payment this month and your house is foreclosed on. That choice is a lot more likely than just "you die". And the choice between bending your morals and losing your house is still a hard one. _(I don't know how mortgages and foreclosures and the like work in Germany, I'm just giving an example that I'm familiar with)_
  - esotericn 7y ago
    So don't take out a mortgage that you can't afford to pay off. It has the potential to make you a slave, as you illustrate in your example. These things don't just happen. If you stand up for what you believe in then perhaps you get fewer toys. It is how it is. I'd rather be poor and stand up for what I believe in than rich and a dickhead. YMMV. The fact that someone has sunk costs does not give them a pass.
    - RHSeeger 7y ago
      > So don't take out a mortgage that you can't afford to pay off. Are you implying that you shouldn't take out a mortgage that you can't pay off without a job? That makes no sense at all. I'll admit you shouldn't take out a mortgage that you will default on if you're out of work for 1 month, but plenty of people wind up out of work for longer periods of time.
Bouncingsoul1 7y ago
I live also in Germany and I experience the opposite. SW Developera may choose and SW Companies have hire whom they can get. Well things may be different here in Southern Bavaria, as they always are ;)
maaanu 7y ago
Sorry, I don't think that is true at all. For one developer there are 5 Job offers. I know multiple people who wrote 14 applications and got 14 offers. Others did not even bother to write any because they got so much offers from headhunters.

endymi0n 7y ago

I‘m sceptical. 20 recruiters on my LinkedIn profile per month would disagree. I‘ve turned in my notice more than once in Germany and literally had a job offer a day later.

qznc 7y ago
It depends on where you live and if you are willing to move. However, FinFisher seems to be located in Munich and it is easy to find a software developer job in Munich.
- pablooliva 7y ago
  Agreed. Finding work in Munich or Stuttgart is easy as a software dev. I would imagine the case is the same for most major cities in the country.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    True, there are some curious hotspots for software engineers. If you are tied down by family or friends, you might have to accept a significantly lower pay depending on location. Even if larger enterprises are present locally, they mostly pay less if the local market doesn't offer more. You can do contract work and travel a lot, but that isn't for everyone. Of course the lower pay is still enough to make a good living, but it certainly isn't anywhere near 6-figure jobs.
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
It depends. If you're a web dev/full stack maybe. If anything else, maybe not.

fjoetna 7y ago

>you have to take the job that you can get I live in Germany too, and my experience is quiet contrary to yours. Of course you won't always work for a company that "saves the planet", but surely people care about good morals when looking for a job, and some companies even adjust to that. A lot of my former and current colleagues quit jobs just because the companies they were working for were always prioritizing profit over morals, or they declined well paid jobs because they just didn't like the companies general business strategy. Don't get me wrong though: of course you can't be super picky and always get a dream, green, social improvement focused job. That's not how it works. Still: I would never want to work for a company that provides surveillance services for shady regimes.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

BjoernKW 7y ago

It might not be Silicon Valley but the German market for software development services is very much a seller's market, too. In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer).

wolfgke 7y ago
> In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer). I was looking for a job in software development for a very long time (region: quite everywhere in Germany or Austria). As of today, I "only" found a job in a very different sector (which is not a bad job, but it hardly has anything to do with software development). And yes, I know quite some people in Germany who also had lots of difficulties finding a job in software development.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Maybe it depends on the type of software development that you want to do? What area is your expertise in?
  - wolfgke 7y ago
    I think I know quite a lot about C and C++ (which means Modern C++ (currently C++17)), but have also worked in a lot of other programming languages (including Python, Java, JavaScript, Erlang (additionally, some further ones for university courses)). Additionally to computer science, I studied mathematics, where I also have a doctorate. I wrote my doctoral thesis about some very tricky questions about geometric structures behind optimization algorithms for discrete optimization problems. In all of these areas (mathematics, computer science, doctorate in mathematics), I either graduated with best possible or second best possible mark. I also claim to know more about IT security than my CV suggests (I got one job interview for a job in this sector, and afterwards the interviewer told me that I have far too much knowledge in this area to be suitable for the available jobs; "you belong into academia"). The same holds, I believe, for embedded programming, where I also think to know quite a lot. Why am I so sure about it? Because as a hobby, I worked on reverse-engineering the firmware of some quite non-trivial embedded device. I also think that I have an immense knowledge of arcane details of the instruction encodings of various CPU architectures, but this is merely a hobby of mine and useless for the job market. -- There exist lots of people who seriously could not understand how I could not find a job as a programmer. For example quite some doctoral classmates (who could find a job in software development) called me a "wandering encyclopedia of the history of computer science". -- As I said: I found a job in a sector that is very different from software development. Just don't tell me that it is easy to find a job in software development; it isn't, even if you are willing to relocate anywhere in Germany or Austria. And I know quite some people who have the same experience.

sudoaza 7y ago

What?? There's lots of job for developers in Berlin, I've been interviewing these last few months and got offers from at least 15 companies

sveme 7y ago

I live in the city of FinFisher (Munich), there's a LinkedIn or Xing recruiter call coming through thrice a week. Your statement might be true in Eisenhüttenstadt, but definitely not in the city where they are located.

wolfgke 7y ago
I hardly ever get messages from recruiters on Xing (let's say: once every two months).

rurban 7y ago

It might be a moral dilemma, but mostly it's basic risk mitigation, when you have to work for a company or agency doing illegal or unconstitutional things. In many cases the company will throw you under the bus.

goatinaboat 7y ago

The market is hot if you are a webdev in Berlin but elsewhere in Germany programming is no more in demand than any other technicians job. This may be hard to believe for the SV bubble crowd but this is how it is.

pluma 7y ago
Hamburg? Cologne? Munich? If nothing else works, pivot to JavaScript.

lnsru 7y ago

I share your opinion, job market in Germany is a tragedy today. I fully understand people writing shady software for VW group at Bosch, they have no alternatives. Kids want nice vacation, payments for the bank must be done every month. Though I am not software developer, but I get also some recruiter offers every week. I was interested in changing jobs and starting talking to these recruiters. Max offers were at €60k what is a bad joke for Munich. Many offers that start negotiations as employment end as contract for 6 months. Before writing here, that changing jobs in Germany is easy, talk to these “recruiters”. Get other work contract with negotiated salary ~€100k for Munich every week. I doubt this will happen soon again.

coldtea 7y ago
So, whether they'd work on making surveillance for totalitarian states was based on whether they'd make $60/k year or $100/k, and afford stuff "nice vacation" for the kids? Doesn't sound like a principled stance. Basically it rounds down to: they would consider a more ethical job, but it's their last priority, well behind a good salary and nice benefits... (It's understandable of course, just not principled)
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Isn't that fairly rational? The difference between $100k a year and $60k a year is enormous.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    In the sense of self-benefit, yes, it's rational. >The difference between $100k a year and $60k a year is enormous. Principles shouldn't depend on that though. Else "Yeah, I'd help kill kids and kittens for $1m" would also be an acceptable answer. $1m is also enormous compared to $100k. Decent people have made much bigger sacrifices that living with $60K a year for doing the right thing...
    - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      Principles don't depend on that, but house prices do and if you know the house market in Germany then you'd get it.

esotericn 7y ago

Let me get this straight, the choice is between: a) Take the one job you've been offered right now, in your location, doing evil things b) You and your extended family starve and die Sorry, I'm just not buying it. What actually happens is that people decide that it's convenient to ignore the moral issues for a bit more comfort; basically, they "don't care". There does exist some vanishingly small fraction of people on the boundary of homelessness for which they literally have to do everything to survive. I don't believe that this is a large group in Germany and I doubt anyone intelligent and healthy enough to be a professional software developer is in that group. If you want to maximize earnings, go for it. You're only lying to yourself if you pretend it's the only option, though.

RHSeeger 7y ago
I think you're making this a little more black and white than it really is. How about a) Take the one job you've been offered right now, in your location, doing evil things b) fail to cover your mortgage payment this month and your house is foreclosed on. That choice is a lot more likely than just "you die". And the choice between bending your morals and losing your house is still a hard one. _(I don't know how mortgages and foreclosures and the like work in Germany, I'm just giving an example that I'm familiar with)_
- esotericn 7y ago
  So don't take out a mortgage that you can't afford to pay off. It has the potential to make you a slave, as you illustrate in your example. These things don't just happen. If you stand up for what you believe in then perhaps you get fewer toys. It is how it is. I'd rather be poor and stand up for what I believe in than rich and a dickhead. YMMV. The fact that someone has sunk costs does not give them a pass.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    > So don't take out a mortgage that you can't afford to pay off. Are you implying that you shouldn't take out a mortgage that you can't pay off without a job? That makes no sense at all. I'll admit you shouldn't take out a mortgage that you will default on if you're out of work for 1 month, but plenty of people wind up out of work for longer periods of time.

Bouncingsoul1 7y ago

I live also in Germany and I experience the opposite. SW Developera may choose and SW Companies have hire whom they can get. Well things may be different here in Southern Bavaria, as they always are ;)

maaanu 7y ago

Sorry, I don't think that is true at all. For one developer there are 5 Job offers. I know multiple people who wrote 14 applications and got 14 offers. Others did not even bother to write any because they got so much offers from headhunters.