8 ms·
Poll: Full-time software engineer salaries in Berlin
Base annual salary only, pre-tax. No options, shares, bonuses, adjustments for inflation, or benefits.
As requested by zerr at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7108449. Here's the 2013 Bay Area salary poll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5802295.
- levosmetalo 13y agoAlso, "without bonuses" part makes no sense, since in Germany some bonuses are contractually enforced and employer doesn't have an option not to pay them. For example, Weihnachtsgeld (Christamas money) is usually 1 or 1/2 of monthly salary and is defined in every contract. In addition to that comes the yearly bonus, which is rarely not awarded in its entirety. In my company it's about 15% of salary for previous year, and only way not to get it is to leave company before the payday.
- mzehrer 13y agoHaha, no "Weihnachtsgeld" is completly optional. Welcome to the Mittelstand.
- Argorak 13y agoIt is treated as salary nowadays, just with odd payment terms.
- Argorak 13y ago> and only way not to get it is to leave company before the payday. There have been rulings that yearly, regular bonuses have to be paid partially if you leave before the payday. For "Weihnachtsgeld", which is a fixed bonus, this is the reason why modern contracts usually don't include it anymore but just put it on the monthly salary. See the link[1] for a recent ruling (german, sorry). Still, a lot of stuff that would be a "bonus" in the US is included in Germany. Contracts in germany include mandatory health care, social security, the whole range. [1]: http://www.zeit.de/karriere/beruf/2013-11/urteil-anspruch-weihnachtsgeld http://www.zeit.de/karriere/beruf/2013-11/urteil-anspruch-we...
- sasvari 13y agoFor example, Weihnachtsgeld (Christamas money) is usually 1 or 1/2 of monthly salary and is defined in every contract. In addition to that comes the yearly bonus, which is rarely not awarded in its entirety. Nope. Weihnachtsgeld is not defined in every contract. Either you're working for a company bound by a union rate to pay Weihnachtsgeld or the company pays it voluntarily. There is no Weihnachtsgeld guaranteed by law. As for bonuses, this depends on the employer and usually also on the time you spent at the company. Just my two cents.
- levosmetalo 13y agoSorry, I didn't say that Weihnachtgeld is required by law, just that I don't know a single person that doesn't have Weihnachtsgeld guaranteed by employment contract.
- Xylakant 13y agoIn our company noone gets Weihnachtsgeld. We treat it as part of the salary and just include it in the monthly wage. But I agree: If it's granted it's more of a salary part than an actual bonus.
- DasIch 13y agoWeihnachtsgeld can become a "betriebliche Übung", if it is payed three times in a row, meaning your employer has to pay it, unless you have a contract that explicitly states otherwise.
- Xylakant 13y agoThis is why literally every contract nowadays includes the legal boilerplate that says so. To quote from our contract: "Die Zahlung von Gratifikationen, Tantiemen, Prämien und sonstigen Leistungen liegt im freien Ermessen des Arbeitgebers und begründet keinen Rechtsanspruch, auch wenn die Zahlung wiederholt ohne ausdrücklichen Vorbehalt der Freiwilligkeit erfolgte. Etwas anderes gilt nur dann, wenn die Zahlung durch Betriebsvereinbarung oder Tarifvertrag geregelt ist." If your contract does not include that boilerplate your employer had a shitty lawyer and should fire him. Edit: fixed Umlauts which were broken by c&p
- timme 13y agoAll of the things you mention are completely optional for the employer.
- levosmetalo 13y agoMaybe better edit the question so that it applies to the whole Germany. You'd get a much larger data set, and there are not really big variations between major cities regarding salaries.
- _ak 13y agoI disagree. There are rather huge gaps between Berlin vs. cities like Frankfurt or Munich. Living costs are much lower in Berlin, and so naturally, wages are lower, too.
- Argorak 13y agoTake this statement with a grain of salt. Living costs are shooting up dramatically, currently.
- _ak 13y agoStill nowhere near e.g. Munich, and it really only shoots up in the hip, stylish neighborhoods. I've lived in Berlin for 5 years now, in a not-so-cool but still reasonably central area (Moabit), and rents have barely gone up during that time. I've also spoken to quite a few recruiters in recent years, and many of them were quite blunt that jobs in cities like Frankfurt, Munich or Hamburg usually get you 10-20 % higher salaries compared to Berlin, same kind of tasks, same skills required.
- Xylakant 13y agoRents have gone up, but there's still a lot of things that are dramatically cheaper in Berlin than in Munich - just go out for lunch for example.
- k__ 13y agoBut jobs which pay 100k in Munich should also pay 100k in Berlin. If you make more than 60k the living costs aren't much of a concern for you anymore.
- 13y ago
- cake 13y ago3 points for "€100k or more" already sounds like bullshit to me at this time. Either that or I would love to hear what you do !
- drinchev 13y ago... Or at least the company segment.
- arethuza 13y agoWithin a few seconds of looking I managed to find a "big data architect" role being advertised in Berlin for 500-600 Euro per day - which is comfortably over 100K a year... Almost tempted to apply... ;-)
- Xylakant 13y agoA 'per day' payment sounds like a freelance consulting gig which puts it at the lower range of the freelance wage bracket. Freelance jobs are paid better but suffer from higher costs, so those numbers are not directly comparable - you'd have to subtract about 40% to cover the costs.
- bnegreve 13y agoOf course it is, this is an online pool. The assumption that a uniform sample of developers from Berlin would vote for this is absolutely ridiculous. It scares me that so many educated developers consider this to of any significance.
- mahyarm 13y agoThat is a pretty standard wage for a sr. developer in the SFBA. Big reason why I'm not moving to europe any time soon.
- doktrin 13y ago$140k is standard for a developer in the bay area?
- dreen 13y agoDeveloper here looking to possibly relocate from London to Berlin or other German (or Dutch) place, I have a question for anyone filling out this poll: I spend on avarage about £700 a month excluding rent, which allows for relatively comfortable life in London. What spending can I expect in Berlin? What about rent? (I pay £425 which is pretty cheap for London)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- vincentkriek 13y agoEindhoven is cool as well!
- radicalbyte 13y ago..and booming, there are a lot of very interesting companies and jobs there. Shame that it's 90 mins drive from here :(
- 64mb 13y agoWhoa, where are you living on that kinda rent? I pay almost double.
- quarterto 13y ago> excluding rent edit: Ok, so I should have read to the end. Yeah, £425 is ridiculously cheap for London.
- resiros 13y agoFor the rent in Berlin calculate circa. 10 euro per square meter. Generally life in Berlin is cheap (For around 1200 Euros you can have a nice life).
- ccbrandenburg 13y agoYou can find extremely nice places for around 500-700 Euros per Month depending on where you want to live. Demand for flats is extremely high so it's really a matter of luck. Another 700 Euros to live very comfortably in Berlin (Lunch, occasional dinner, going out on weekends). Standards of living are extremely high in Berlin. I can only recommend this city!
- drinchev 13y agoWow. I didn't know that so many people reading HN are Berliners. Let's try to make a Berlin HN meeting some day..
- nader 13y agoyes that would be awesome and I'd join as well.
- peterjmag 13y agoAgreed! Who wants to organize one? :-)
- ShellfishMeme 13y agoI'm already organizing one together with a friend. Stay tuned. We'll post some details later when we figured out a good date. In the meanwhile, if you'd like to propose an interesting talk, just send us a mail to hackernewsberlin@gmail.com. We think it would be cool to have a mixture of tech talks and startup stories. I'd love to hear the founding stories of some of the startups around here.
- brightsize 13y agoI'll be in Berlin for three months starting in March, so I'll be at the get-together if you can set it up.
- glazskunrukitis 13y agoRelevant - http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&city1=London&country2=Germany&city2=Berlin&displayCurrency=EUR http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...
- phazmatis 13y agoA little off-topic, but how hard is it for a US citizen interested in having lived in two countries in his life to get a dev job in the EU? I imagine most devs that come in from another country are coming from at least within the EU, and I was just wondering how unheard-of my case would be.
- klaustopher 13y agoYour embassy provides everything you need to know ;) http://germany.usembassy.gov/acs/working_in_germany/ http://germany.usembassy.gov/acs/working_in_germany/
- peterjmag 13y agoI can't speak for the rest of the EU (I'm a US citizen working in Berlin), but it's definitely not unheard of here in Germany. In fact, it's actually becoming pretty common, thanks in part to some progressive immigration reform. Here's a comment I posted a couple months back with more information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648443. Feel free also to get in touch (my email's in my profile) if you want some more advice. Anyway, I say go for it! It'll be the best decision you've ever made. :-)
- tinkerdol 13y agoAlso relevant: http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/ http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/ (American junior developer/researcher outside of Frankfurt here -- also very happy)
- socialist_coder 13y agosuper easy. getting a visa in germany is cake compared to the US. lots of tech / game companies here in berlin / germany will hire americans. just start appplying!
- devinegan 13y agoMy brother is a US citizen and left Zappos (Las Vegas) for Soundcloud (Berlin) last year and his experience was seemingly very smooth. I think Soundcloud helped a lot with that, but it doesn't sound difficult to get your visa. With that said, he did mention that his college degree helped with that process.
- nader 13y agoAvg. rent in Berlin is €1000, Avg. Lunch 8€, Beer 0.80€, Internet €23 ... more info here: http://bondero.com/startup-cost-comparison http://bondero.com/startup-cost-comparison
- ido 13y agoAverage rent in Berlin is not 1000 eur...Oh, I see they say it's for 85 m^2 in the city center. That's extremely roomy for a single person or a couple.
- nader 13y agoRent has exploded in Berlin and is continuing to climb in Berlin. Also if you look outside the city center, i.e. in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg oder Prenzlauer Berg. As single developer you wouldn't need 85qm, true. As a couple you probably want to have min. 50-60qm. My personal taste obviously, but I have a family with two kids and we need more than that :)
- TillE 13y agoDespite a huge increase in demand making it much more difficult to get an apartment in a desirable area, the rent increases on them have only been a few percent per year. And dealing with property management companies is usually a huge pain, but that's nothing new. It's still pretty easy to find a 50qm in Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, or Neukölln (within the Ringbahn) for under €500-600 warm. If you want or need a larger, fancier flat, or if you want to live in Prenzlberg or Charlottenburg, obviously you can choose to pay more.
- ido 13y agoThe places you mentioned are all the hippest, most desirable neighborhoods though! If you look into (relatively well connected parts of) e.g. Moabit or Wedding you'll find prices more agreeable.
- playing_colours 13y agoThat "average" is not really average. Current info for 2 rooms flat not in the very centre, but some stations from it - EUR 650-800 incl. heating. In fact, you don't have to live in the very centre (Mitte). The public transport system is amazing, the city is very bike-friendly and a lot of startup companies tend to have offices in the eastern part of Berlin. UPD: well, for a large flat in the city centre that's a fair price, but that's not average for Berlin.
- wisienkas 13y agothose answering less than 20k euro, how did you manage to get paid that low. To me coming from denmark, that more sound as if it's a monthly salary compared to "starter-salary" in denmark which is 35k DKK or 4,7k euro a month.
- klaustopher 13y agomaybe apprentice positions?
- levosmetalo 13y agoOr they simply misread the question and reported after tax salary.
- peterjmag 13y agoA couple observations: While €20k is certainly a low salary for a software engineer (even in Berlin), it's not completely unheard of. I've seen a couple startups offering €1500/month for entry-level dev jobs, and actually, €1500 gross is enough to live on here. Then there are the so-called "mini jobs", which only pay €400/month or so, but those are usually student jobs or unskilled labor. You probably won't find any real dev jobs at that level—especially not full-time positions. Also, it's pretty common here for people to discuss salaries in monthly terms (my German employment contract is one example), whereas in the US it's more common to talk about annual salaries. I didn't consider that when I created this poll, so it's possible some people were accidentally responding for the wrong time frame. I've added "annual" to the description to clarify. And finally, it's entirely possible those are just junk responses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537023
- wisienkas 13y agoThose 1,5k per month could be a reason why, true. For my student job I only make 500 euro a month, but that's well a side job while i study tho. so of course that is somewhat low, because i'm only working 9 hours a week there.
- rglullis 13y agoDon't mean to pollute all threads with salaryshare stuff, but the tool is so appropriate for this use-case... I've created a salary pool at http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4 http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4. Please only post a salary if you are full-time employed in Berlin. Those who only want to see the results, please check http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4/results?pass=HnBerlinPool2014 http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4/resul....
- jorgem 13y agoThat is so clever. If you can convince your coworkers to use it, you can figure out if you're underpaid.
- rglullis 13y agoGlad you liked it. That was the main use case. I've added just a few of the features since the "Show HN" years ago: different currencies, different pool sizes, the results page... the one thing that I still need to do is the "send a secret email to your co-workers with a link to the pool". I fear that I can't do that without user signups, though.
- leterter 13y agoThose are some really low salaries
- iagooar 13y agoThey may sound low, but compared to the USA, Germany has public health care, free education (up to graduate level), a long, paid parental leave and a lot of other social benefits. This really sums up if you have to pay for all these things yourself.
- this_user 13y agoYou are paying for those things, but it's being paid indirectly. Paying 40% or more of your gross income for health care, social security and taxes is another thing that Americans would probably find to be high.
- ulfw 13y agoOh really? And you really pay less in Federal taxes + California State taxes + Medicare + Social Security tax + VPDI etc etc? For me that was 40%+ as well...
- brightsize 13y agoThis. I'm always surprised how people think that Europe is going to kill them with taxes in comparison to the States. If I add up all the taxes that you mention for any high-tax US state the sum is going to be right up there pushing 40%, maybe more. The difference is that as far as I can see the Germans, like Canadians, are getting some their tax money back in the form of social services and social protections. Here we just feed it to the military-industrial complex all while carrying on about how "the country is broke".
- doktrin 13y agoCompared to the VC speculation bubble in SF, sure.
- ploureiro 13y agoBetter visualization: (aka chart this poll) http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=7109180 http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=7109180
- c1sc0 13y agoFor anyone outside of DE reading this: do keep in mind that these are salaries in Berlin, probably the cheapest place in Germany to find devs.