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Comment by ed_balls | Hacker News Reader

If you'd double my salary I still wouldn't move to Germany. Learning a new language is too big investment.

I can't speak for Germany, but e.g. in Norway and the Netherlands which I know best, there are a lot of nice tech jobs and you don't have to speak a word of the native language. I know because I've had colleagues over a decade who don't speak the native language and who are still just fine.

Most tech companies today use english as work language anyway. Not necessarily social talk among people, but usually in meetings, emails, documentation etc.

Still I recommend learning the local language. It has advantages but it is not something you are completely dependent on.

You can survive sure, but I'd be really hard and expensive to start a company. How am I suppose to read german law and fill government forms? Have a lawyer to everything for me? Thanks no thanks.

You'll have a hard time starting a company or anything without consulting a lawyer or legal service in Germany. And you won't be taken seriously e.g. by banks etc. Fortunately, cost for legal advice on this matter is significantly less than in the US, AFAIK. Plus, you have the bonus of being able to do business in 27+ countries with marginal or no extra effort.

In that case I'd prefer to start a company in Poland. Much lower taxes, cost of infrastructure, legal, labour, capital requirement for LTD (25000 EUR vs 1200 EUR).

Not even talking about attracting talent but retaining it. That being said, in Berlin startups you don't need to speak german. You just need to be down with working for a shitty salary at a meaningless e-commerce project or copycat that is never intended to succeed.

I think you are essentially confusing "tech" with "web" (granted SV mostly does the same). Go to Southern Germany, if you want tech jobs, not Berlin.

You can live and work in Berlin without speaking single word of German.

You can, but Berlin is not (yet) where most of the interesting high-tech jobs are. Moreover, if you want an interesting social life, eventually you'll have to learn the local language, there's no way around it.

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