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Germany plans €3B in AI investments

reuters.com

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Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#101

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

thwy12321 wrote: post #9

The people in these countries dont respect programmers, they pay them peanuts. How are they going to innovate?

Having worked as a programmer for 6 years in an EU country, the salaries are pretty reasonable, in the top tier of office workers, below exec level.

Maybe it's the US programmers, particularly the ones in Sillicon Valley that are being over - paid? The way I understand it, you can only expect six-figure salaries for working in one of the top companies in SV, and that only if you have graduated from one of the top universities in the area.

Also, there are six-figure salaries in the EU for programmers. You just have to know a bit of COBOL and not be afraid of biig scaary mainframes :0

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#102

Post by Rinzler89 »

reacharavindh wrote: post #59
bitL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typical Berlin startup: - hires devs with extremely low salaries - gives 0.004% equity at best - is run by people that are "better than anybody else" - expects constant overtime and 24/7 employee reachability - has managers with issues saying "thank you" - hires friends/family to higher echelons of company Does this sound like a recipe for success?

Don't know about the rest of the points, but I looked into several job opportunities at Berlin, and was shocked by how low their offered salaries were. That was the end of my interest in looking for jobs at Berlin... I live in Denmark currently, and can attest that to some extent, salaries cannot be compared because of different social structures & expenses. Getting paid 50% of what I used to make in the US did not m…

Sure, salaries in Berlin are smaller then in the Scandinavian capitals but let's talk about the cost of living. Isn't beer like 8 euros in CPH vs 2-4 in BER? I'm not even going to open the real estate can of worms.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#103

Post by Xylakant »

zeroname wrote: post #93
zahrc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use German resources if you want to learn about Germany. This is no offense but it's an annoying fact. https://www.arbeitsrecht.org/arbeitnehmer/arbeitszeit/so-lan... Tldr; employees and employers have to make sure that no-one oversteps the 10 hour maximum. Basically I could get fired if I do, because my employer could get into trouble.

> Use German resources if you want to learn about Germany. This is an English speaking forum. Unless you have evidence that the English resources contradict the german ones, calling me out on this is pointless. > Tldr; employees and employers have to make sure that no-one oversteps the 10 hour maximum. That's not the point. The point is do you have a right to get compensated for extra hours. Let's say you're hired fo…

> The contract says you're not entitled to compensation for overtime. As far as the law is concerned, I see no problem here whatsoever.

You don't. The Bundesarbeitsgericht (the highest court for labor disputes) does: https://juris.bundesarbeitsgericht.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung...

You can include clauses that allow limited unpaid overtime, for example "36 hours per week and up to 16 hours of unpaid overtime per month", but then, as an employee, you should treat that as a 40 hours contract. Unpaid overtime cannot be agreed upon retroactively, it must be in the initial contract. Unlimited overtime is not permissible except for people in certain positions (Managing Directors or other people with full control over their time are generally exempt from that, people with sufficiently high compensation might be [the usual threshold is the Beitragsbemessungsgrenze der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung which increases yearly and is currently at about 80k EUR/year])

However, the legal situation differs from the situation on the ground. Companies still offer contracts with invalid and unenforceable rules and employees are still afraid to sue, even though you can sue for unpaid overtime after you leave.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#104

Post by 5_minutes »

blattimwind wrote: post #22
5_minutes wrote: post #13

Germany is still not allowed to have an offensive army, so it makes a lot of sense to at least stay first class in tech, and in AI, in order to stay relevant as a world leader for the future.

The Kellog-Briand pact prohibits signatories (including the US) from offensive wars anyway. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter states that members shouldn't even use threats of offensive actions. And the Grundgesetz obviously bans offensive wars as well. Not sure what you're thinking, but you're waaaaaay out there.

They are basically not allowed to have a real army, still just like Japan, "only defence armies".

I'm not talking about offense acts or actions. I'm talking about being allowed to do miletary R&D and actually being allowed to have a real army out there. They don't.

So how far off is it to assume they're assertive with AI to make up for it?

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#105

Post by baxtr »

bitL wrote: post #94
odiroot wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that Munich has generally better culture in this industry? I don't even mean startups, just asking in general.

Munich is generally not as open to foreigners as Berlin. Even more foreigners are in Frankfurt, but most hate living there, despite getting a funding is much easier than in Berlin/Munich - it's fun to see ICOs popping up there 1 year after they were relevant, so if you follow US trends, you can apply them without much effort over there a year later and be celebrated for copying some already well-known idea.

This is complete BS. I live in Munich and work for a company with a high share of internationals. None of them wants to move to Berlin

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#106

Post by jcbrand »

sveme wrote: post #56
SilasX wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>expects constant overtime and 24/7 employee reachability Doesn't that conflict with German labor law? Edit: Definitely agree about credentialism ("people that are better than anyone else"). Germany takes that to the extreme. Career change in your 30s? Not possible.

I actually changed careers three times in my 30s. No issues whatsoever. Sounds like the proverbial Germans downtalking Germany And all the Germans agreeing. Then again, why would a society change for the better if there would not be all the internet and Stammtisch complaining and moaning about all that could be better?

As a foreigner living in Germany, this was one of the first things that I noticed and was a bit of a culture shock.

Germans love to complain and seem to think that this is how you improve things. I believe there's some truth to that, and it seems to work for them, but it can cause chronic dissatisfaction and can cause intercultural issues when living or traveling abroad (where people aren't used to fielding so many complaints about poor service).

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#107

Post by gsich »

SilasX wrote: post #35
bitL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typical Berlin startup: - hires devs with extremely low salaries - gives 0.004% equity at best - is run by people that are "better than anybody else" - expects constant overtime and 24/7 employee reachability - has managers with issues saying "thank you" - hires friends/family to higher echelons of company Does this sound like a recipe for success?

>expects constant overtime and 24/7 employee reachability Doesn't that conflict with German labor law? Edit: Definitely agree about credentialism ("people that are better than anyone else"). Germany takes that to the extreme. Career change in your 30s? Not possible.

It does. But here is the hint: If you have a token you stamp out and work continues.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#108

Post by gsich »

odiroot wrote: post #83
StreamBright wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but why Berlin? Munich has several very successful startups and excellent engineering community with serious investors and companies who can be either clients or potential purchasers of these startups. Why do you chose Berlin as a representative of German startup scene? I know they had some success but there is so much more in Germany. goo.gl/uPLVMy https://www.eu-startups.com/tag/munich/

Do you think that Munich has generally better culture in this industry? I don't even mean startups, just asking in general.

Munich is generally nicer then Berlin. Probably a bavarian trait.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#109

Post by iagooar »

bitL wrote: post #32
rsp1984 wrote: post #25

The problem is not a lack of funds. The problem is bureaucracy and a lack of startup infrastructure. My feeling is that the people in charge have absolutely no effing clue about how to most efficiently deploy this money so they will do what sounds good on paper but will have 0 effect in reality. If it goes how it usually goes the largest part of this money will likely to to universities and other research institution…

A typical Berlin startup: - hires devs with extremely low salaries - gives 0.004% equity at best - is run by people that are "better than anybody else" - expects constant overtime and 24/7 employee reachability - has managers with issues saying "thank you" - hires friends/family to higher echelons of company Does this sound like a recipe for success?

OK, so let's talk about what we, a Berlin startup that I co-founded, do offer:

- fair salaries for the experience and attitude

- no equity, because we believe that a fair salary is better than a lottery equity

- we don't expect people to work overtime and value work-life balance a lot

- we say thank you A LOT

- we hire people who are the best fit for the job

And since we're talking about this: we're hiring a software engineer in Berlin. We are a podcast hosting company, are profitable, have +1k paying customers, some really high-profile. Ruby on Rails, Angular, VueJS, Go, Nodejs, AWS, Heroku. Office in Kreuzberg, 60-65k €. Both founders are software engineers themselves and value solid, healthy codebases. Let's talk if you're interested.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#110

Post by gnulinux »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #101
thwy12321 wrote: post #9

The people in these countries dont respect programmers, they pay them peanuts. How are they going to innovate?

Having worked as a programmer for 6 years in an EU country, the salaries are pretty reasonable, in the top tier of office workers, below exec level. Maybe it's the US programmers, particularly the ones in Sillicon Valley that are being over - paid? The way I understand it, you can only expect six-figure salaries for working in one of the top companies in SV, and that only if you have graduated from one of the top uni…

Sorry but this is such bullshit. Not only in the Bay Area, but in Seattle, Boston, NYC etc... 6 figures is definitely NOT expected only from FAANGs. Any startup paying less than 90/100k to juniors, 150/200k to seniors won't find any engineers. FAANGs pay 200 to 300k. My graduating class last May had $105k average salary in the Bay Area and for me finding a 6 figure job wasn't even that hard. It's a bit ridiculous to argue the entire US tech industry is overpaid. Maybe EU still can't see how tech is changing everything and engineers are the most important part of the company. EU is very far behind and is not willing to catch up.
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