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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I've noticed this too, and it's not just about comparison with US - the relative salary compared to other jobs in Germany seems to be exceptionally low, from what I hear. I wonder what causes this anomaly?

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After a recent stint living in Berlin and working for a German company I think it also may have something to do with the quality (and price) of higher education and the open EU job market. Many people I was working with were in their late 20's on their first job as a junior because they stayed in school much longer than they would have in the U.S. because it's a very low cost (and more of a societal expectation in Germany to have at least a Masters) so you've got a broader highly educated workforce rather than the U.S. where a bachelor/masters from an Ivy or Stanford will set you dramatically ahead of others. Also, you have a lot of highly educated people coming in from Italy, France, Greece (these are the most common ones off the top of my head I remember working with) that have an even worse labor market at home and are willing to work for less.

>I wonder what causes this anomaly?

Compared to the US, you will not find many rich people in Germany. At the same time you will also not find many poor people. Generally, people are quite equal in Germany.

You know what else you will not find in Germany? Successful software companies. There’s basically SAP (which is a multinational that hides its revenues abroad) and hardly anything else. Hmm, I wonder why that is.

Define successful. I know of one German software company that's raking in money and large contracts, despite being staffed with underpaid junior developers and overpaid clueless managers. I had this eye-opening moment, after which I asked my boss, how is it possible that we have the expertise and yet they have the money...

And what did he answer?

He shrugged and continued to desperately try to clean up a mess aforementioned company just caused.

Yet, Google, Microsoft etc. still have offices in Germany.

They're just here to suck in the local talent, filter the best of them and "gently" nudge them towards a job in the US.

No one is saying there isn't eng. talent in Germany. They're just mistreated by the system.

And the valley tech giants know this very well and take advantage of it.

Maybe the distribution is much narrower, but it also seems that software salaries are on the lower end, which is the most surprising part to me. Or, as a German colleague of mine put it, "my no-good brother who takes construction jobs every now and then earns more than me in this software job", followed by revealing that apparently his wife still has to work for them to have the ends meet, because programmer's salary is not enough.

But that is definitely not the norm, is it?

I was lead to believe it is; I'm asking here if anyone can confirm this.

The average full time salary in Berlin is 40-50k before taxes. The median income of all Berliners is a lot lower than that, because we have many part timers and many people on social security. The programmers that I know get about 70k on average. Rent in Berlin is about 10€/m^2 (heating included), so 700€/month gets you an apartment for two.

I assume that the brother from your anecdote doesn't declare all his income (you are left with about 60% of your paycheck after taxes and mandatory insurances). I don't see how a programmer salary isn't enough for two people to make ends meet.

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