Feel free to enjoy our 40000 - 50000 EUR salaries (I'm not saying whether this is bad or good, it's just something to be aware of; don't expect any SV silliness regarding salary here).
Salaries will be lower, but so will cost of living.
Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
141–149 of 149 posts
Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#142Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#143Silicon Valley is ...nice...in certain areas...but overall, I don't like the US way of planning living areas - seems like that unless you have a lot money, you'll be living in some endless suburban sprawl and commuting 90 minutes to work in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I know pay in Berlin must be lower compared to that in the Valley, but what's life in Berlin like if you're in software? How's the job situation, relativ…
Berlin is a really cheap city by European standards for developed countries, I live in Stockholm and just went two weekends straight to Berlin (I really love the city), basically if you work with software you're well off.
Food, drinks, entertainment, everything is cheap, your salary will be around €50~55k/year, that means you'll probably get close to €3k/month after taxes, rent is raising but it's still cheap for an European capital (between €700~1.2k depending on what you are looking for) and probably around €150 for utilities (maybe a little less, I'm basing on the numbers a friend who's moving there has been telling me).
Plenty of job openings, every day I check them and there are tons of new openings on LinkedIn, SO Careers, Landing.jobs, etc.
Overall seems to be a great city to live if you like urban gritty cities, I personally love it and plan to move there next year if possible.
Probably you can regret it if you are looking for a calm city to live in, Berlin is very alive and kicking all the time, the Germans I know from Berlin are among the friendliest people I've know in my life (and I'm Brazilian).
And knowing German seems to help a lot, the locals mostly know English but they can be a bit shy to speak it all the time so when you eventually end up with a bunch of Germans they'll be speaking German between them.
Please, if someone see any misinformation correct me as I'm very interested to know better.
Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#144In the meantime while Nordics are home to just 3% of Europe’s population, it has created more than 50% of Europe’s Billion Dollar exits since 2005. If there is startup capital in Europe, it's Stockholm. https://medium.com/creandum-family/the-nordics-in-context-th...
And did thoss exits resulted in sustainable and long-term growth ?
Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#145Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#146This is crazy. What is not crazy is the new site that just started, that offers lessons of the English language via Skype. For more information go to https://adapt.nd.edu/members/3044/blog/2015/12/learn-english...
Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what way are lower wages good for the employees you're trying to attract? While some aspects of cost of living are low, others are not low at all. I guess if you're looking for nothing more than a temporary lifestyle involving enough money to go to concerts and eat at restaurants, the wage is fine for a younger person in Berlin. But it's a fantasy to believe you can effectively grow a company that way. You really…
I made 50k in a more expensive city, Paris. From that my partner and I were able to buy a flat, put our son into a catholic school, travel (squeezyjets €20 flights), dine out, and save a little. This would not be possible anywhere in the US including SF. Child rearing costs are punitively high in the US. Medical was less than 10% of my salary. If my calculation is right the typical 2BR apartment in SF is $5000/month.…
I've contemplated your comment for a while now and I think there is no way for me to reply to it except to say that I truly do not believe you.
I'll add one caveat -- if you are saying that you and your partner both earned around 50k euros/year (combined household income of around 100k euros/year), then I would believe you, and it would not be surprising nor would it contradict anything I'm saying.
If instead you are claiming that you supported the kind of lifestyle you describe on a 50k euros/year salary, I simply do not believe it.
If you want to equivalently spend about 1/3 of a 50k salary on rent in Paris, that will be 1388 euros/month, or $1534 / month. It's ludicrous for you to claim that you can easily find a 2-bedroom apartment with clean accommodations and a reasonable commute distance from central Paris for $1534/month. So, very likely, you'll be spending more than 1/3 of your income on rent in metro Paris, if you earn 50k, so a greater fraction even than in SF. It's actually quite a lot more than 1/3 after you take into account taxes. (Also, re: medical, I've worked at large & small, young & old companies and only 1 out of the 4 has required me to pay any premium on medical insurance, and even then it was low. I know this is not always the case in America, but you definitely can find jobs that provide this if it matters to you.)
When I lived in Paris in 2010, I lived near the Exelmans stop (close to Parc des Princes), which was a long-ass trek into the city center (and even longer for me going to Universite Paris 7 for work). It was a 1-bedroom apartment shared between me and a flat mate (I slept on a pull-out sofa). There was no dryer, only a washer, and the water closet was separate (across the whole apartment) from the bath/shower, and had no sink. We also had to flip a metal sheet up onto the top of the washing machine in order to have any counter space when cooking.
That apartment was 1300 euros/month (650 split between two roommates) and we were only given that price because the apartment owner said he found the two of us (graduate students) to be especially responsible and was hoping for good stewards to take care of it, so he offered a discount down from the 1500 euros/month he listed originally.
Thus, from my own experience, 1/3 of a 50k salary in Paris will if you're lucky get you a very cramped 1-bedroom with sub-par appliances and accommodations that is way outside the city center and requires onerous commute times.
This was in 2010, so I can't imagine how much prices have risen.
Absolutely no way will you be able to afford a 2-bedroom place on that budget unless you're way outside of Paris. And with the remaining ~ 30k euros not spent on rent, you will be very unlikely to afford private school and the rest of what you claim -- and I'm not even factoring in the much higher tax rates.
Even looking on lodgis right now, even all the way out in the 16eme where I lived before, I'm seeing rents of 2500 - 3100 euros/month for anything with 2 bedrooms. This is somewhere around $3000. Sure, yes, that's lower than in SF or New York, but just as I have been arguing, it's not lower by a large enough amount to justify the drastic reduction in wages.
Facing these prices, I'd be much, much better off earning in the high $100k range in SF/NY than I would be earning anything below 100k euros in Paris/Berlin/Amsterdam/etc.
But pretty much the only country in all of Europe where a visa worker can actually approach a 100k euro salary is Switzerland.
The reduced cost of living is not enough to justify the even-more reduced wage you're paid. It just does not make economic sense. If you have access to developed American job markets, you are better off in real wage terms than in almost any situation possible in Europe.
It's deeply unfortunate too. I absolutely loved life in Paris. I love spending more time at meals, less focus on consumerism, greater focus on closeness with friends, greater focus on culinary pleasure. I felt (and still feel) I would fit in well, be productive, and happy living in Paris. Except that for the wage I can earn there, I would struggle to get by, and it's absolutely not worth it to suffer the stress of that struggle. I wish it were differently, really. But it's just the wage reality.
Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't balance out at all. If you care about being a very successful start-up, then you are implicitly competing for international talent, whether you like it or not. The same people choosing to work in SV are the people you should be trying to convince to work in Berlin. Saying they get ~ 50k euros/year but don't worry, the cost of living is low is a universal non-starter. That's just simply not competitive. The…
american and german salaries are fundamentally not comparable if you look at the bare numbers. German salaries already include pension and healthcare for example, for which the employer pays 50% of the total, which goes on top of the salary. That alone makes a 50k EUR salary more similar to a 75k USD salary (not taking into account the exchange rate, which adds another 10% as of today). There's also at least 4 weeks…
In 3 out of the 4 jobs I've had in America, I have paid zero premium for health insurance (100% paid by employer), and had either 4 or 5 weeks of vacation (not including between 9 and 12 company holidays too).
Even with the exchange rate, my base salary was more than triple the $50k euros amount, and I have and also was paid a wage that was high enough to comfortably exceed local cost of living. In fact, I generally find that when an employer has to start nervously listing side perks like medical coverage or vacation as apologetic offerings to excuse an obviously poor salary relative to cost of living, it's a huge red flag that they know they are not equipped to recruit exceptional people.
In all my comments I am already talking about how much money you have left after general cost of living expenses. Even though such costs are lower in Berlin than in many major US cities, the salaries in Berlin are even lower at a disproportional level. Unless you adopt a more ascetic lifestyle, your lower salary in Berlin will not stretch as far despite the lower costs. The costs, while lower, aren't low enough.
Re: Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
People of Ireland speaking here: -Want to stay in the EU? -Want to trade in the Eurozone? -Enjoy low corporate tax rate of 12.5%? Pro-business government? -Enjoy friendly, well educated, English speaking, Pro-American people, good beer, decent music, nice quality of life, low crime and safe green natural environment? (Look how much fun even our soccer fans are http://www.irishexaminer.com/euro2016/euro2016-banter/10-…
Is it very multicultural though? I've heard from friends who have travelled there that non-white folks aren't treated the same and there's a bit of cultural bias. i'd love to visit though.
It's a small place so never going to be as multi-cultural as New York or London but it's done a decent job of integrating new cultures over the past two decades...of course if you English be prepared to have people take the piss out of you during football/rugby matches etc... :)