Germany for Software Engineers
A deep dive
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As “The European Engineer”, I like to talk about different countries in Europe - from the perspective of a software engineer wanting to live a great career and life.
Some of the very first articles of this newsletter (back in 2023!) had exactly this flair (like this top 3 cities guide, or this top 10, or top 20), and in general most of my research and content goes into this direction.
Even in the products I build:
Code Capitals (free) helps you check saving rates for big tech roles across the world
Euro Tech Money (free) helps you check personal finance data for devs across Europe (please contribute if you haven’t already! :))
Euro Top Tech Jobs (paid sub) helps you find, track and land the highest-paying tech roles in Europe
I already did some countries deep dives
About Switzerland:
About Poland:
About Central Europe:
And several more… (Just check the archive for the full articles’ list)
Today we do Germany
Last week, I started sharing some data about Germany for devs, from Euro Tech Money.
Then I talked about it on LinkedIn, got some feedback, some new data, and today I’ll do a more complete country guide about it.
Hope you’ll enjoy!
Salaries (before taxes)
Last week, Poland surpassed Germany on Euro Tech Money on total compensation (before taxes, not CoL-adj - i.e. in absolute terms) figures.
Now, Germany has caught up again, and it’s 6th in Europe - considering only countries with more than 15 contributions - at avg TC of €91,139.
Whereas Poland is 7th at avg TC of €89,846.
It’s safe to say though, that for the audience of this newsletter (engineers targeting the top 10% of the market in Europe), the two countries at this point offer similar TC ranges.
This is if you’re targeting all kinds of companies.
If you’re specifically targeting big tech only, then Germany will still pay about 20-35% more than Poland.
It’s interesting to see how TC numbers before taxes are spread out across the top countries in Europe:
Poland to Netherlands (i.e. 3rd to 7th), it’s all in the 90-105k eur range: not a big difference.
UK and Switzerland - at 144k eur TC - are the only 2 countries offering remarkably more than the rest.
This is a bit interesting to observe, and here are some observations about it:
Switzerland, on paper, “pays much more” than the other countries, but then, in practice, if you’re not in big tech (only few roles), you’re looking at compensations below 150k.
The UK (London in particular), has a lot more high-paying jobs than Germany, Netherlands, Denmark and other countries in Western Europe: despite salaries, with the companies being equal, across these locations are quite similar, the fact that the UK has many more such jobs (nr.1 country for job availability on Euro Top Tech Jobs), makes a difference in the avg pay top devs get there vs in the rest of Western Europe.
Salaries (after taxes)
Germany ranks 8th at €55,608.
Here are the top 6:
Poland and Romania at 66k and 61k after taxes respectively put things in perspective.
These are cheaper countries than Germany, and these after tax salaries are higher than the ones in Germany.
Meaning devs in Germany are effectively quite a bit poorer than in Poland or Romania.
In fact, when sorting countries by their tax rates…
Tax Rates
Germany is the worst in Europe at avg 39%
I asked German devs on LinkedIn if they find these high-taxes justified
Some people pointed out that infra is not bad but that pension scheme is bad
Others that healthcare is quite good
Healthcare IMO is one of the biggest advantages of Germany - because it’s hard to build up a solid and extensive healthcare system
Few countries are really good at this.
In Central European countries:
You can be a ‘rich dev’, but hospitals are not always at Western Europe standards (although things are improving, and, depending on exactly where you are, you might find good solutions - either public or private).
In Switzerland:
Healthcare is generally good, but the fact that a lot of it is private and “run by insurances” has several downsides too.
Check this thread about healthcare in Switzerland (link to linkedin):
Even this guy, a German dev who moved to Switzerland/Poland (and very happy about his choice), while saying that Germany is ok only to be a classic “middle-class” person, admits that healthcare in Germany is quite good:
In general I guess this can summarise the view on “German public services” 🙂
Cost of Living
CoL in Germany is actually not that bad.
From Euro Tech Money:
Germany is the 8th cheapest country with ~€20.5k spending per capita
For reference: Romania, Poland and Spain score ~€17k per capita, while Sweden, Austria and France ~€20-22k per capita.
Saving rates
Germany performs “just ok”: 20k eur/year on average
With devs in Netherlands, Romania, Poland, Denmark… All saving ~30k eur/year
And devs in Switzerland and the UK saving ~38k eur/year on average
Family friendliness
Germany’s contained cost of living + availability of good public services make it a family-friendly place.
In fact, it’s 4th in Europe on “family size” (number of people supported with the engineer’s salary):
After only Serbia, Poland and Italy.
With 1.7 people on average supported in Germany with the salaries we talked about earlier (~90k eur/year before taxes and ~55k after taxes).
So…
Is Germany the ultimate “Welfare State” choice for devs in Europe?
I think if that’s what one wants, then Germany can be an interesting option.
The competitors would be:
Scandinavian countries
Spain and France
Italy
Considering Spain’s recent uptick in top-paying jobs availability, I think I would pick that over the other “Welfare-states”
The reasons:
Although, about welfare states in general: I think we should not ‘idolise them’
Check out the perspective of this Sweden-based dev on low class mobility in Sweden:
Personally, I like approaches such as that of Poland, which strike a balance between ultra-capital systems like the US and welfare-states like Germany, France etc.
Especially if one is a software engineer.
But in the end this is a personal preference.
Conclusion
I hoped you liked this deep dive!
Let me know if you have some remarks about it or some feedback - will be happy to include them in a part 2 :)
And let me know which countries you’d like to see next!
Cheers
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