Many people want to live in Germany, there's nothing wrong with Germany itself. If German companies were competitive in pay and culture, they could easily attract the best from around the world. It's my observation that many German companies are not interested in top talent, and see software developers as a cost center for which they need to get "value for money".

I don't get why people still think this. Look at the other comments in this thread.

Germany isn't the best place to bootstrap a startup, but it has amazing universities and very established - and sophisticated - multinationals that train end employ a large number of incredibly talented people.

Germany has a comparatively weak consumer software industry.

They are kind of weak for computer SW compared to USA, but are quite strong in Europe. Their pay packages for SW engineer in the automotive industry is however exremly competitive for Europe. For me it is only nearly on par with switzerland, taking into account the cost of living.

Depends what you compare it to. Everywhere is relatively weak against the West Coast scene.

That said there is still a lot of talent in the EU and it's only going to get better since the Brexit negotiations is going off the rails and companies are starting to relocate.