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My 2 cents: Just finished my first month in Munich as a Web Dev after moving from Australia. Company is great and colleagues are lovely. German bureaucracy suc
by scanny 5y ago
My 2 cents: Just finished my first month in Munich as a Web Dev after moving from Australia.
Company is great and colleagues are lovely. German bureaucracy sucks but apart from that it has been an experience of ‘the more things change the more they stay the same’ when it comes to the job and culture.
Honestly linkedin has had the best results for jobs, that and using a template for CVS and cover letters.
There’s plenty of work and plenty of good companies, just keep applying and keep the effort in each application low.
I interviewed the same here as I did anywhere else, job is at an English speaking company and my German level is still only at basics but that’s something to build when you arrive.
Just apply from stability overseas and have them fly you out and sort the visa, don’t take a big risk at a time like this otherwise.
Taxes and, as Allendoerfer rightly corrected me, the various social securities (unemployment insurance, healthcare, pension ect.) which you benefit from are almost half of your income, living expenses are high in some cities (Munich rent is mental). 58,000 euros is the normal minimum for a blue card, lower for tech jobs, but I would advise not taking less otherwise you’ll have serious stress by not having a decent income on top of the cultural change and no support network.
- martin_a 5y agoGood to hear that you like it. Munich can be lovely in the summer, you'll surely enjoy it. Also: Enjoying a real bavarian Biergärten is something I really look for after Corona.
- scanny 5y agoAfter seeing the size of them when empty I really am keen to see them in full swing. It’s beautiful here, touring by bike has been fantastic, it must be amazing when everything has leaves!
- allendoerfer 5y agoTo add to that: Taxes are not 50%, but there are mandatory social insurances you have to pay: Health insurance (+elderly care insurance), unemployment, pension system. They make up the biggest chunk for low to medium sized incomes. Your employer also pays into these insurances for you, which does not show up on your job-offer. So effectively you get 20% more than advertised.
- scanny 5y agoYes that is true, I keep seeing the chunks of my pay go and forget that there is a good reason (except for the TV licence!) I’ll edit my post
- comodore_ 5y agoIt's a total of about 50% in social security contributions AND taxes. Assuming you are single and have no kids and your gross salary is 100k, you pay about 15k in social security contributions and 29k in income tax. And additionally 2.5k in church tax if you're catholic or lutheran.
- AlchemistCamp 5y ago> And additionally 2.5k in church tax if you're catholic or lutheran. Woah, what? How does that work and why?
- shellfishgene 5y agoWell, we don't take separation of church and state as seriously as we should. The state collects the taxes for the churches, it's around 9% of your income tax. This happens automatically if you're baptized, and you have to leave the church if you don't want to pay this, which also happens at a government office.
- missurunha 5y agoI thought this was just a way to reduce money laundry. If the church would just receive donations, it gets hard to track where the money is coming from/going to. There's a church in Brazil that flies helicopters out of the temple carrying cash [1]. If you're a drug dealer there's no money laundry scheme better than this. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciw8ciqPY_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciw8ciqPY_c
- sammax 5y agoIt has historical reasons. Back when Napoleon conquered Europe, the HRE redistributed some land from the Church to the secular rulers and in return promised to fund them via taxes and compensate them for the land. The church tax has since become more of a membership fee (you can just leave the Church and stop paying it), but the state still collects it for the Churches.
- monster_group 5y agoWhat's the tech interview process like in Germany? Do they ask you to do LeetCode style problems on whiteboard or Google Doc?
- scanny 5y agoVaries quite a bit. For me it was just a verbal interview with technical questions about how I would approach different problems. I sent a link to my GitHub beforehand and they were happy with what they saw so there wasn’t anything practical.
- codr7 5y agoI would consider moving to Munich just to have this place around the corner, simply awesome: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187309-d12010845-Reviews-Simon_Pure-Munich_Upper_Bavaria_Bavaria.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187309-d12010...
- ramraj07 5y agoSalads? What’s so special?
- z3ncyberpunk 5y agoNothing at all.
- codr7 5y agoEverything about the place; the food, the space, the people who work there, the music; they have exceptionally good taste.