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Comment by 1474295912 | Hacker News Reader

VisualMeta GmbH in Berlin. They're a 'start-up' backed by Axel Springer, Berlin.

They fired about 60-70 people recently, some of them on their first day of work. Most of their devs come from non-existent countries (China/Eritrea/Pakistan etc) and they're paid abysmally (€32-34k).

It's a surprise that this news wasn't covered at all in Berlin start-up press.

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> Berlin... 'start-up'

> backed by Axel Springer

These are already two red flags, enough for a person familiar with the Germany's job and tech markets to stay away.

Care to elaborate?

Berlin startups are infamous for hiring foreigners from countries with low salaries, ideally from outside of EU (so no free movement of workers with Germany) and paying them below the market salary. Low pay + dealing with German bureaucracy + sky rocketing prices of everything in Berlin = person has a problem.

As for Axel Springer - their understanding of internet innovation is quite... "skewed". e.g. as some kind of manifest they blocked their tabloid's website (bild.de) for web browsers with enabled ad blockers or they are notorious for suing developers of ad blockers:

http://www.reuters.com/article/germany-advertising-adblockin...

Their philosophy seems to be "the internet is a platform to deliver advertisements" - quite toxic in my opinion.

Makes sense, thank you

They also think it's a good idea to get your content removed from Google, if they don't pay a fee for linking to you.

Chinese developer working in a Berlin startup here. I agree the Berlin startups do hire a lot of foreingers (there is a report stating that 49% of employees are foreigners), and it drives the salary down, but I can say my salary is the same level as others developers, as developers has such a huge demand here that you can change jobs freely, unlike American H1B visa.

Also because the EU bluecard has a salary requirement, so they usually pays you the lower limit at least in order to get you here. That's the situation of my Mexican friend, he changed job as soon as he worked in the company for a year and get better paid.

Second this (as another non-EU citizen working in Berlin) -- you have to make at least 38k euros per year to work in Germany as a foreigner, which is enough to live comfortably in Berlin IMO. However, as you said, there are definitely plenty of companies that are paying more than this. Changing jobs is a non-issue when you're on the ground.

Yeah but the requirements of the EU bluecard are in line with the EU average - low for Germany.

Not really for Berlin. It's more than average pay, see http://www.nuberlin.com/2016/01/average-salary-in-berlin/

Also note, 38K is for person with science/engineering background. Otherwise, lower limit for EU Bluecard is around 48K

That seems a bit low. Here in London it's a waiter's salary.

Well, giving that the GBP against EUR rate is like 1:1.1 at the moment, even if you have 70k anual salary Berlin, it's much less than who paid 70K in Berin, considering the living cost. And 70K is very reasonable now with Senior title, not to mention manage positions.

> dealing with German bureaucracy

This is too much exaggeration. If you can find another job, dealing with bureaucracy is piece of cake. You just go to Foreign Registration Office and change company name.

34k € is a bad salary in Germany? Because I think it is an average 1st salary in France (or the companies I've been talking to are also planning to get me paid abysmally)

34k ain't bad, but average salaries for Experienced Java devs with 5+ years of experience are in the range of 50-55k.

Also by paying less than blue card limit, the devs are basically tied to VisualMeta. Most of the devs don't know German system well and thus are being taken advantage of.

34k will be very good salary for an experienced java dev in Italy..

Depends on where you live. If you're near a larger city or not. There's a huge discrepancy in salaries Due to geography (and also massively depends on your skill set, obviously).

To give you a frame of reference, I was pretty well paid in Perpignan after a few years in a company (a bit north of 40k€). The junior devs I hired got south of 24k€.

For a developer I'd say yes. For comparison the yearly salary for an entry level academic (masters->university) is about 44k € gross/year (which more or less automatically goes up to about 49k after one year). I'd expect a decent entry level developer to make at least that.

Social contributions are a much bigger part of your gross salary in Germany. 34k would be ~28k in France.

My company hires new grads around 50k and I guess decent startups who make people relocate across continents should pay at least 45k.

Damn. That's more than I got when I started in London. Should have picked Berlin instead.

When it comes to software development, London (and the UK) certainly seem to have a low pay culture.

Can you make 6 figures in Berlin? (In London, it's doable)

I hope you're not saying "low pay" because you compare to the USA. The Europe and the USA are not in the same league, they shouldnt be compared.

There is a difference between "acheivable" and "culture". I should also probably add I'm thinking of London-Non-Finance which is admittedly smaller than London.

100k+ is definitely possible in Germany but hard in Berlin itself, even for a principal engineer.

I'd say you need be be at least Manager/Director/VP of engineering, depending on the size of the company.

As another said, it is heavily dependent on location.

For a dev job around Paris, it is very low.

34kE for a new master's graduate is rather low in Paris. It's rather high for the rest of the country.

See here for discussion about French salaries.

http://www.developpez.net/forums/f597/emploi-etudes-informat...

That's the main french forum for professional developers tips & tricks & career advice & salaries.

Thanks, and do you have an idea about Nice / Sophia Antipolis ?

I am not familiar with the area.

Feel free to open a topic in the aforementioned forum, they'll know better .

Fresh graduate salaries in Sophia are ~€33k-€40k. Negotiate hard, as getting a raise later is tough.

Edit: I meant "Non-EU" countries, not non-existent.

A helpful clarification :)

I just had to wonder what you meant by 'non-existent countries'.

According to this meaning here, these countries don't exist?

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/nonexistent

"non-existent" ?

I think she meant non-EU countries.

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