Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's how I do it. Works well.
How does that work tax wise? Does the California company have an office in germany? If so, do they still pay the same salary as in california?
Oh, I'm self-employed.
How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
161–170 of 316 posts
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would anyone with the intelligence and drive needed to become a software engineer pursue that field? Instead of... what? It's not like you can make 2x the salary easily by instead becoming something else. Salaries are pretty flat, if you want to make money you should invest in somethig or have your own company. Also: I'm not sure it's' a good idea to pick jobs based on salaries. It's good to not worry about mon…
> In a welfare state I don't have that priority I just don't believe that's true. Many, many more Germans immigrate to Switzerland, the UK or even America than vice versa. That's primarily because professional salaries in the latter are higher. That strongly suggests that at least some non-negligible proportion of German professionals care about compensation.
Obviously there are tons of people who want to do this. But the difference I think is that fewer people feel the need or expectation to aggregate wealth over their career.
Another angle I didn’t think of is the work-hard-retire-early mindset which of course means that a) you work hard and expect high comp for it b) if you do long hours and have little holiday, you have a higher interest in retiring early, which requires lots of capital.
My SWE salary is with 6w holidays, haven’t done many workweeks over 40h yet in a 20 year career. I don’t just expect to work to 70, I want to work to 70. My work life balance means I have more than enough time for gardening and travel without retiring. Retiring at 70 requires a lot less capital than doing so at 55.
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#163> To sum up: if you are single and opt for "live cool and don't care about expenses" style, then an average developer salary will be enough (it might be harder if you have a family to feed). > On the other hand, if you choose to go the student-like route (living in Wohngemeinschaft and not eating out too much), you can easily manage with just 1.200-1.500 EUR per month, and save the majority of your salary. I know it…
Savings is for a down payment. Then you pay mortgages on the house and any savings are much better to keep (retirement, buffer, ..). If I were to save to buy my house (€800K) I'd certainly not be living in it before the kids move out, at which point I no longer need a house. The price of a house on the market has a pretty simple formula: it's what two incomes can pay per month times the interest rate they expect over…
But you can't live in your stocks.
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#164All in this article looked standard up to the point where I discoved that: "This is assuming that you are single and not a church member, because there is an extra tax (around 9% of your income tax) if you belong to one." Wtf germany? I have found more info: https://www.nomadenberlin.com/blog2/german-church-tax-kirche... it is a complete non-sense to me, if ever you wanted to give, why you are not allowed to decide t…
Yes, it's strange. But many of my millenial friends aren't even baptized, so they don't have to pay the tax. Also, you can "leave" a church any time you want.
> you can "leave" a church any time you want.
For a small fee and an in-person visit to an office "near" you! Or so I've heard (I live in Germany but have never been a church member here so I wouldn't know myself).
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#165Is my perspective skewed or are part time tech jobs pretty rare in Germany?
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also get (probably) 30 days of paid vacation a year and up to 6 weeks of sick pay paid by the employer (and after that by your health insurance). You can't just compare the raw numbers to get a full picture.
I mean it's just so far off. Check levels.fyi, Google/Airbnb/Coinbase will be paying $300k+ for software engineers with 4+ years of experience.
Money isn't everything to everyone. Different people value different things. I could probably get a job in the US with my work experience, but I'm happy here in Sweden, even though I make less than $100k a year. It's enough to pay for my lifestyle, so why should I trade a big part of my 30 days of vacation for more money which I don't need?
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#167Is my perspective skewed or are part time tech jobs pretty rare in Germany?
Part time jobs are usually for students, since they can mostly work only 20 hours a week
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a welfare state I don't have that priority I just don't believe that's true. Many, many more Germans immigrate to Switzerland, the UK or even America than vice versa. That's primarily because professional salaries in the latter are higher. That strongly suggests that at least some non-negligible proportion of German professionals care about compensation.
Obviously there are tons of people who want to do this. But the difference I think is that fewer people feel the need or expectation to aggregate wealth over their career. Another angle I didn’t think of is the work-hard-retire-early mindset which of course means that a) you work hard and expect high comp for it b) if you do long hours and have little holiday, you have a higher interest in retiring early, which requi…
> But the difference I think is that fewer people feel the need or expectation to aggregate wealth over their career.
German savings rates are 50% higher than America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gross_nat...
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#169All in this article looked standard up to the point where I discoved that: "This is assuming that you are single and not a church member, because there is an extra tax (around 9% of your income tax) if you belong to one." Wtf germany? I have found more info: https://www.nomadenberlin.com/blog2/german-church-tax-kirche... it is a complete non-sense to me, if ever you wanted to give, why you are not allowed to decide t…
What's even weirder: church attendance is super low compared the US, the average German pays not to go but on the flipside churches act like social service arms of the government (meals on wheels, eldercare, etc.)
Schools also have religious instruction as a main class, although you can opt out. I'm a lifelong atheist but thoroughly enjoyed the religion classes, even picked it as a minor in my upper division classes. This might have changed, though, I left Germany 30yrs ago.
Re: How to find a job as Software Developer in Germany
#170The salaries seem really low. The absolute highest paying job listed on their site is a 110,000 euro salary, but you can get more than that with zero experience in California. I wonder if it would be better for software engineers in Germany to simply get remote working jobs for US companies.
That's how I do it. Works well.
You are a freelancer right? I always feel the US salaries are more comparable to EU freelancer salaries; I never made less than E100/hr as freelancer for the past 25 years working for EU companies. And often (if the economy is good etc), over 250/hr is doable. Sure you need to buy your own insurance (if you don't want public hospitals or minimum welfare if you get fired) but other than that I don't think it's that far off.