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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • 35 to 40k (if your spouse is choosing tax class with a higher rate) after taxes or around so, depends on many factors - German tax code is complicated.

    Is it enough to live on

    Generally - barely above “paycheck to paycheck” level, but highly depends on location. In Munich you’ll be fucked with this type of salary.

    or buy a home

    lmao no. Houses are mainly for older and retired people or rich, vast majority of active workforce are apartment renters, more fortunate ones were able to save/get help from relatives for mortgage. Total home ownership rate in Germany is 46.7%, lowest of all OECD countries - and that’s including older people who got their homes during better economic times. Neat trick about Germany is that you have to have both stable job at big company and a lot of cash on your hands to cop a mortgage, since 20% downpayment + taxes/fees and other bullshit that run at around 10% of the total price make good barrier.

    buy a home and support a family

    Not really, adults in the household have to work, 60k is not ‘breadwinner’ type of salary at all. In general, tech workers aren’t special in Germany, if not for US companies branches they’d be earning the same as everyone else and in many industries (like transportation), where pressure from international market is not present that much, they still do.

    It was good while it lasted, but Germany is heading into some pretty interesting times in general, younger population is absolutely fucked.







  • Just because you’re paid well doesn’t mean others are not being mistreated

    FTFY
    without unions there could be a huge salary disparity between devs in the same role, in the same company, even in the same project. I’ve personally witnessed more than 2x, heard about even more.

    Sometimes it’s more than justified with individual’s performance and impact, sometimes it’s not. Some people are just better skill-wise, some people are better at applying pressure on their employer, holding business-critical knowledge hostage or simply negotiating.

    Point here is - while unionizing might make things better on average, there would be a very real pushback from people who are benefitting from current system and this is not necessarily management. For management in some cases it would be even a net benefit, since they don’t have to deal with primadonnas and someone tying things to themselves just for leverage.