Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The deindustrialization of Germany

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 175 posts

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#151

Post by FirmwareBurner »

jamil7 wrote: post #143
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Berlin has just reached maximum occupancy? I mean, we'd all like to live in our favorite dream city, but how long is that sustainable long term, if we all move to one city? Germany seems like it wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants more migration to put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on housing prices, but that's it, it does nothing to actually make life pleasant and attractive for th…

I don’t think the city is full, just poorly run. The rest of your comment I agree with though.

>I don’t think the city is full

Yeah but then why is finding housing nearly impossible? It's not like tones of apartments are sitting empty without occupancy because "the city is inefficient but not full".

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#152

Post by rurban »

tetris11 wrote: post #130
patall wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am your boss, you are the employee, now shut up and do as I say This would also not work in engineering and never did. In fact, it's likely one of reasons why german engineering was so good: because people would (and still do) tell their boss bluntly what is wrong.

Can confirm this in science too. German masters/PhD students are much more willing to correct the professor on a topic, then I. England. N=1, of course.

Well, I'm just reading the Oppenheimer biography, who studied in the US, UK and Germany, and he came to the very same observations. And tried to encourage his students in Berkeley successfully to be more critical and interrupt the professors.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#153

Post by mmarq »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #149
mmarq wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not arguing the morality of food delivery platforms (and I’ve only mentioned one because some friends work there), I’m saying that they pay better than in London. In Delivery Hero and Hello Fresh, I know seniors making 100K, staff engineers making 150K, so I suppose principals would make 200K. This is more than similar roles make in London. Also, talking to people that work there, I wouldn’t call these places bod…

>In Delivery Hero and Hello Fresh, I know seniors making 100K, staff engineers making 150K, so I suppose principals would make 200K. Question, are these salaries documented anywhere or is it your insider knowledge? Also, I don't doubt people with such wages exist in Berlin at these companies, but how many seniors and principals are those food companies hiring now in this economy? I sense it's not easy now to get one…

I helped two friends in their negotiations, so I know exactly how much they make (between 140 and 160K total compensation). They were hired early this year. I also interviewed for similar companies in Berlin and Munich (I refused two offers and I was discarded by one company).

On levels.fyi, salaries seem to be slightly lower, but still in 6 figure territory: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/delivery-hero/salaries/soft...

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/hellofresh/salaries/softwar...

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/zalando/salaries/software-e...

According to their websites, Delivery Hero and HelloFresh are still hiring senior, staff, principal and senior principal engineers.

Anyway, I know many “average” engineers making 80-100K as seniors in Germany (I mean people that don’t do leet code, that don’t negotiate much, that don’t care too much about their career), in hyper unionised companies with massive benefits and ironclad job security.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#154

Post by FirmwareBurner »

mmarq wrote: post #153
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In Delivery Hero and Hello Fresh, I know seniors making 100K, staff engineers making 150K, so I suppose principals would make 200K. Question, are these salaries documented anywhere or is it your insider knowledge? Also, I don't doubt people with such wages exist in Berlin at these companies, but how many seniors and principals are those food companies hiring now in this economy? I sense it's not easy now to get one…

I helped two friends in their negotiations, so I know exactly how much they make (between 140 and 160K total compensation). They were hired early this year. I also interviewed for similar companies in Berlin and Munich (I refused two offers and I was discarded by one company). On levels.fyi, salaries seem to be slightly lower, but still in 6 figure territory: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/delivery-hero/salaries/so…

>I know many “average” engineers making 80-100K as seniors in Germany[...]in hyper unionised companies with massive benefits and ironclad job security

Do you have any examples or info on which are such companies please. AS an average engineer looking for senior pay, you got my interest.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#155

Post by jdasdf »

wernercd wrote: post #100
brazzy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? It's not billionaires who "earn" money by doing nothing who are greedy, but those who think such greed should not be allowed to perpetuate across generations? That is the position you're trying to defend?

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#156

Post by shakow »

radiator wrote: post #102
eldaisfish wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would not be so hopeful. A big problem is that germany does not operate in the global lingua franca - English. This really shows when countries like Australia and Canada - combined, both have a population less than germany’s - are able to attract the best and brightest from around the world. Another problem is one that plagues all old world countries - societies are based around ethnicity. These combine to mean tha…

Since when is it a problem for a country to operate in its own language? Especially one which is spoken by 100 million people? Have you considered that people who migrate to a new country for work might even try to learn the language? Who says English must remain lingua franca in Europe? But beside all that, everyone with a basic education in Germany does speak good English if needed.

> Since when is it a problem for a country to operate in its own language?

Since it wants foreign workers because they can't afford their own kids.

Germany is not the only country on the brain drain market, and does not enjoy a domineering position either – thus, it should make some efforts if it wants to maintain its market share.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#157

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #151
jamil7 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the city is full, just poorly run. The rest of your comment I agree with though.

>I don’t think the city is full Yeah but then why is finding housing nearly impossible? It's not like tones of apartments are sitting empty without occupancy because "the city is inefficient but not full".

I mean Berlin is just catching up to other European capitals in that regard. The weird thing about Berlin was always how cheap it was, which was basically an accident of history.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#158

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

oezi wrote: post #85
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hartz reforms are fairly famous, yes. It’s mostly social dumping. Forced contraction of actual wages through reform of the benefits plans. It’s important to note that they are overall poor reforms and should have been nullified by the German money value shifting due to the knock off effect on the saving rate. This didn’t happen because they were put in place at the same time as the Euro and the overall imbalance…

Why should the reforms be nullified by a change in saving rates? Hartz IV reforms pushed unemployed people back to work by reducing long term unemployment benefits to 400 EUR + rent. This certainly reduced purchasing power first (by reducing available money) but also quickly freed up social spending as employment rates soared.

That’s a classical and expected corollary to social dumping reforms intended to boost competitiveness. There is less money invested inside your own economy (that’s what the saving rate is) as you have intentionally made people poorer which leads to an influx of foreign capital propping up your currency and nullifying the advantage you were expecting on the international market.

As mentioned before Germany whose economy is extremely unbalanced and wouldn’t be viable if it used its own currency was shielded at the cost of killing the competitiveness of the poorest union members.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#159

Post by mmarq »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #154
mmarq wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I helped two friends in their negotiations, so I know exactly how much they make (between 140 and 160K total compensation). They were hired early this year. I also interviewed for similar companies in Berlin and Munich (I refused two offers and I was discarded by one company). On levels.fyi, salaries seem to be slightly lower, but still in 6 figure territory: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/delivery-hero/salaries/so…

>I know many “average” engineers making 80-100K as seniors in Germany[...]in hyper unionised companies with massive benefits and ironclad job security Do you have any examples or info on which are such companies please. AS an average engineer looking for senior pay, you got my interest.

Mind, I’m not using the word “average” derogatorily, I’m referring to good senior developers that simply don’t follow trends, don’t do leetcode and don’t spent too much time chasing pay rises (I unfortunately had to, because of my family’s economic issues and because I live in the UK, where you either own property or you can’t live like a civilized man).

I know people working for BMW, VW, Bosch, NXP, Infineon (some in Germany and some in Austria) earning that much. Some do security, others embedded, others CRUD stuff in Go or C#.

I don’t know if these jobs require Germans to follow the German corsus honorum (Gymnasium, BSc, MSc) and so are not accessible to those that attended a Realschule (foreigners seem to be exempted).

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#160

Post by radiator »

jamil7 wrote: post #145
radiator wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is it a problem for a country to operate in its own language? Especially one which is spoken by 100 million people? Have you considered that people who migrate to a new country for work might even try to learn the language? Who says English must remain lingua franca in Europe? But beside all that, everyone with a basic education in Germany does speak good English if needed.

I speak German, but only after being here 7 years. Are you seriously taking the side that a new immigrant in the country should be able to navigate a complicated immigration and registration process, documents and interviews in German? It’s not an easy language to learn and the expectation should not be that you’ve somehow mastered it before moving to the country. Your second point is also irrelevant since officials…

7 years is too long in my opinion, but better late that never I guess. I don't know whether Germans delude themselves about the relevance of German abroad, but I understand that some people delude themselves about the relevance of other languages (English) inside Germany.

What I say is valid for all countries, i.e. if you move to France/Italy/Netherlands/Denmark you should learn French/Italian/Dutch/Danish.

Post reply on HN