> I applied to 14 companies, talked to 8, interviewed at 5 and got an offer from 3.
That's very good success rate, can anyone confirm similar results? Over here (central EU states) it's more like:
>50 --> ~30 (good match they want to talk and ask for salary requirements at this point) --> ~10 (they could pay if you are "REALLY good" i.e. child of Knuth with Torvalds) --> 0-1.
The market is flooded with dirt cheap Russians and Ukrainians, even Americans/Canadians for some reason desperate to put their foot in the doors. Asking for anything above 60k EUR gross annually pretty much guarantees 0 at the end of the pipeline. Big 4 are so capricious, demanding, and time consuming (while still paying local salaries + 20-30% max) that it's better to not bother with them over here.
I'd recommend to be careful when mentioning nationalities together with diminishing words ("dirt cheap") - even if it's not discrimination, it can impact your judgement and its validity.
For example, if you would have said "the market is flooded with dirt cheap programmers", the next question would have been: are the competent, therefore really valuable from a value per dollar perspective, or not? Once you mention their nationality, the reasoning goes elsewhere and you don't make your point (you do not follow-up on why they're dirt cheap, how this connects to their quality of work and why it causes the 60k cap).
Whether you like it or not this is the migration dynamics in this part of EU. For Russians/Ukrainians it's geographic proximity plus salaries higher than in home countries. Many Americans/Canadians idealize this part of EU (Germany in particular) as some kind of promise land, eventually have romantic partner over here. All of them are in volatile and vulnerable legal situation (e.g. visa depending on employment contract). Either way most of the times I end up visiting the company I talk with an American, Ukrainian, Russian, and a local national. There are quite some Romanians as well, but they emancipate quickly (Romania has been EU member since recently).
As an American that took a substantial pay cut (taxes add to the pain) to get into Germany, this sounds about right for my experience. I came over mostly as a cultural thing, and salary was less of a concern.
I work with a few Canadians as well, and they didn't have access to the same salary levels back in North America that Americans do, so salary is less of an issue for them coming to Germany.
I'm a US-based (Ohio), experienced dev, in an in-demand field - so this might not be the same for everyone - but it sounds believable to me.
I just recently switched jobs, and I only seriously talked to 4 companies, all about remote roles. In all cases the companies/recruiters reached out to me, and so I basically skipped the application process.
Two made offers, one came to a mutual conclusion with me that it wasn't a good fit, and one told me that they changed their mind about remote work and would want me to move within 6 months, so I called it off.
Lol. I think they changed their mind sometime in the last couple of months. I'm about to join them soon. Was supposed to be remote as well, but I'm planning to relocate now.
I have a similar experience. I am still at university and not a native-German, but I am asking around, and for a non-IT German, 60K (gross) would be like super-rich money, and companies are not willing to give you that much. However, my experience is not based on the big cities, where I know 50-60K (gross) would be the starting rate for a Master's student.
I would be interested to hear other's opinion and experience, as I will join the workforce later this year.
I have friends contracting in Germany at 800 EUR/day (which comes to about 180k EUR per year). Seems like, as in many other European countries, the good money is in contracting.
That's very good success rate, can anyone confirm similar results? Over here (central EU states) it's more like:
>50 --> ~30 (good match they want to talk and ask for salary requirements at this point) --> ~10 (they could pay if you are "REALLY good" i.e. child of Knuth with Torvalds) --> 0-1.
The market is flooded with dirt cheap Russians and Ukrainians, even Americans/Canadians for some reason desperate to put their foot in the doors. Asking for anything above 60k EUR gross annually pretty much guarantees 0 at the end of the pipeline. Big 4 are so capricious, demanding, and time consuming (while still paying local salaries + 20-30% max) that it's better to not bother with them over here.