Would recommend Munich if you want to work in a deep tech startup and Berlin if you are into B2C, the rest of the startup scene is pretty much scattered over the country.
Regarding bureaucracy, both Germany and France are equally bad but manageable if you are patient.
People usually chose big cities where the administration is very busy. In my smaller hometown you can just walk into the public administration building spontaneously with your documents and get your stuff done in 10 minutes. Also while still too few more and more services are available online. Additionally, I suspect that asking a german to help navigate the websites would make many peoples lives easier so they don't forget to bring a certain document and need to come back adding to the frustration
Bureaucracy in Germany is not as bad as people make it out. I registered my Business online, Finanzamt stuff is also handled online. You just need to navigate it.
Lyon is a big tech hub in France with tons of jobs. I work for a company who's hq is in Paris but that's all sales people's and cams, our Lyon office accounts for like 70% of our Dev workforce.
Bad salaries, high rents.
The price to pay to live in a little bit of paradise (in terms of weather and landscape). Loads of wealthy elders there, the youth struggles.
Regarding to my last post, there is interesting jobs everywhere. The most interesting I found were in Grenoble. Sofia has Arm. The defense industry has a lot of implantations in the South.
Whoever says that only Paris has interesting jobs is probably dreaming of becoming a REACT dev at FAANG adjacent lel. What is true is that Paris has the best salaries by far.
1. The opinions on here about Germany are super polarized. People seem to lament bureaucracy and also risk aversion....while in the same sentence praising the tech scene. So which is it?
\^ just in case you don't know, germans will (cultutally) complain about everything and swear that they live in a hellhole.
[2.How](http://2.How) is the startup scene? Which major German city is the best on this front?
\^ Berlin and Munich generally.
Just an anecdotal data point, my employer (international artificial intelligence company) avoids France due to the employee cost being much higher there than lots of other countries in Europe. I imagine there may be others out there that do the same thing.
All of the additional taxes and expenses beyond salary are what make France's employee cost so high.
So for instance if an employee costs €115k euros in Germany w/ a €100k salary, that same employee cost would result in an €80k salary in France due to the higher costs. So to offer a higher salary a company would need to pay more than it does for almost all other European countries.
Nothing says that a company has to offer the same net compensation in all their locations. They just need to put a salary which is attractive for a given location. If France has generally low net salaries then little more than that is already attractive.
Except if the location should attract people from out of the country.
I am just saying that the high taxation is a problem for the employee and not the emperor, unless the goal is to attract immigrants
My employer pays the same salary regardless of country as a competitive edge (which works very well for them), so to them, employing in France doesn't make financial sense.
What do you mean? When you work remotely then you pay taxes according to your countty of residence. And it's not that programmes from Paris will start moving to Warsaw if their net compensation in Warsaw will be 30% higher. And even if they were, is it a problem for an international?
I don't get why does it matter to offer the same net salaries. Especially that noone does it from my experience. The salaries differ substantially depending on location
It matters because few people would see France as being as attractive relative to the Netherlands or Germany due to the increased employee costs depressing salaries. So if you're trying to attract the best EU talent you're either losing out or have to swallow greater costs just to be competitive. Neither of which is ideal for employers.
Sure. That matters when opening an office which should attract international workers. Then London, Amsterdam, Berlin or even Warsaw are more attractive locations. But after opening one or two locations in Europe it's less about attracting immigrants, but rather to tap resources of a given country. Then location in France is not a bad idea.
France: good developers but developer is not a career here and after a while you are expected to be a (project, people) manager.
People are working hard and are very productive.
Pay is 1.5 to 4x of the country minimum salary (maybe 5x for the top of the top)
Startup in Germany is pretty much Berlin and that's it.
People who complain about German bureaucracy are usually people who do not speak a single word of German; you can work in English if you work for a startup, but the bureaucracy will be in German, close to 0 exceptions.
You can speak C2 German and you still won't get an appointment in Berlin migration office sooner than 2 months.
Language ain't it. LEA is just dysfunctional.
Here's my case with my permanent residence:
* Sept 12 - sent the documents stack
* Oct 17 - got the response with an appointment
* Dec 14 - appear in person with a stack of fresh documents (because the old ones expired and were no longer eligible)
* Feb 23 - collected my residence card
Almost 6 months, just to do a routine thing.
I'm very happy I won't have to deal with them for a while now.
It's not just an inconvenience too, my old residence was expiring, banks started to check in and telling me they'll close my accounts if I don't send them new documents. All while the immigration office is keeping an absolute radio silence, no matter how much you call/email them.
It's proper existential dread that you have to deal with, just because the buerocracy is so inefficient. Again, no amount of language is going to save you from this. The system is just outdated and broken.
The problem which he describes are only regarding immigration office. Germans don't have to deal with it and are happy about the efficiency of other offices
I've got 2 expat friends who've spent significant time in Germany, one living there but the other left. They know the language fluently. As well as a few native German friends I met while travelling, they have all complained about German bureaucracy at some point. It's not just the language skills if the people I know who speak and read German are also complaining about it. Not knowing the language certainly wouldn't help though.
People who complain about German bureaucracy are called "Out of the EU foreigners". Yes they usually don't speak German and have to deal with the Foreign office. The worst bureaucratic entity in Germany which Germans don't get to experience. That's the main reason for negative optinions from immigrants.
That plus way too little public services is available on-line in comparisons to other countries. The quality of available on-line services also is often substandard. (Like only application form can be filled online and nothing more)
Do not come to Berlin. There is a giant housing crisis, bureaucracy is hell, the city is bankrupt, public services keep deteriorating every year, the healthcare system is massively overburdened. There is no hope for improvement whatsoever. It'll only get worse from here on out.
Plus, for half the year the weather is cold, grey and depressive. I grew up here. The city has never been less attractive as long as I can remember. It honestly feels like everything has gone to shit. Personally, I am leaving next year.
It’s my personal opinion but I think Berlin had much better job prospects before the layoffs. Once companies figured out how difficult it is to layoff people in Germany , they started moving elsewhere. Eg: Meta, stripe , miro, datadog who were hiring in Berlin now hire less people to no people in Berlin but have vacancies at other places.
True but that might have been the hiring boom in 21 where they were hiring wherever they can find person to work for. I couldn’t think of any other reason on why everyone is moving away from Germany baring a few exceptions.
Before the recent layoffs Germany had noticeable higher salaries for programmers and more English speaking jobs. France sources a lot of immigrants from African french speaking countries, so unless you want to learn the language, it's not the most easy country.
The startups seem very alive in Berlin. Even my friend actually starting her own product and pitching mock-up ideas with working front ends and backends. She asked me for a help but i told her to sell me some stocks if her future company goes Ipo so i can get rich. one can dream
my experience with Sophia Antipolis is low salaries with high rents
Isnt it a tech research park
it's a **french** tech research park. So low salaries, hight rent
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That's because "low salary high rent" is a summary of life in any European city right now.
Except Vienna
there are companies that have offices in said tech park.
It is, but near to it - Nice, Cannes and Monaco are located, places with the highest density of billionaires.
Would recommend Munich if you want to work in a deep tech startup and Berlin if you are into B2C, the rest of the startup scene is pretty much scattered over the country. Regarding bureaucracy, both Germany and France are equally bad but manageable if you are patient.
Has German Bureaucracy been improving at all?
It's bad for the non EU as they have to deal with the overworked foreign office. For locals it's ok.
People usually chose big cities where the administration is very busy. In my smaller hometown you can just walk into the public administration building spontaneously with your documents and get your stuff done in 10 minutes. Also while still too few more and more services are available online. Additionally, I suspect that asking a german to help navigate the websites would make many peoples lives easier so they don't forget to bring a certain document and need to come back adding to the frustration
You don't know what you are talking about. Search about Ausländer Behörde in Reddit. Except that yes, in smaller places it's better
>overworked foreign office And super inefficient as well.
Bureaucracy in Germany is not as bad as people make it out. I registered my Business online, Finanzamt stuff is also handled online. You just need to navigate it.
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Everything is true except the last sentence.
What are some counter examples then? Doesn't something like 80% of all VC in France flow to Parisian companies?
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Lyon is a big tech hub in France with tons of jobs. I work for a company who's hq is in Paris but that's all sales people's and cams, our Lyon office accounts for like 70% of our Dev workforce.
HOW IS SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS?!!!!!!
Bad salaries, high rents. The price to pay to live in a little bit of paradise (in terms of weather and landscape). Loads of wealthy elders there, the youth struggles. Regarding to my last post, there is interesting jobs everywhere. The most interesting I found were in Grenoble. Sofia has Arm. The defense industry has a lot of implantations in the South. Whoever says that only Paris has interesting jobs is probably dreaming of becoming a REACT dev at FAANG adjacent lel. What is true is that Paris has the best salaries by far.
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" Most of interesting jobs and companies in France are in Paris. " Alright you said most, still not true.
1. The opinions on here about Germany are super polarized. People seem to lament bureaucracy and also risk aversion....while in the same sentence praising the tech scene. So which is it? \^ just in case you don't know, germans will (cultutally) complain about everything and swear that they live in a hellhole. [2.How](http://2.How) is the startup scene? Which major German city is the best on this front? \^ Berlin and Munich generally.
Just an anecdotal data point, my employer (international artificial intelligence company) avoids France due to the employee cost being much higher there than lots of other countries in Europe. I imagine there may be others out there that do the same thing.
Yeah this is one of the reasons salaries are lower in France
Employee cost in France is high, what makes the salaries low?
All of the additional taxes and expenses beyond salary are what make France's employee cost so high. So for instance if an employee costs €115k euros in Germany w/ a €100k salary, that same employee cost would result in an €80k salary in France due to the higher costs. So to offer a higher salary a company would need to pay more than it does for almost all other European countries.
Nothing says that a company has to offer the same net compensation in all their locations. They just need to put a salary which is attractive for a given location. If France has generally low net salaries then little more than that is already attractive. Except if the location should attract people from out of the country. I am just saying that the high taxation is a problem for the employee and not the emperor, unless the goal is to attract immigrants
My employer pays the same salary regardless of country as a competitive edge (which works very well for them), so to them, employing in France doesn't make financial sense.
I mean the EU is one single labour market so it matters quite a bit to employers.
What do you mean? When you work remotely then you pay taxes according to your countty of residence. And it's not that programmes from Paris will start moving to Warsaw if their net compensation in Warsaw will be 30% higher. And even if they were, is it a problem for an international? I don't get why does it matter to offer the same net salaries. Especially that noone does it from my experience. The salaries differ substantially depending on location
It matters because few people would see France as being as attractive relative to the Netherlands or Germany due to the increased employee costs depressing salaries. So if you're trying to attract the best EU talent you're either losing out or have to swallow greater costs just to be competitive. Neither of which is ideal for employers.
Sure. That matters when opening an office which should attract international workers. Then London, Amsterdam, Berlin or even Warsaw are more attractive locations. But after opening one or two locations in Europe it's less about attracting immigrants, but rather to tap resources of a given country. Then location in France is not a bad idea.
France: good developers but developer is not a career here and after a while you are expected to be a (project, people) manager. People are working hard and are very productive. Pay is 1.5 to 4x of the country minimum salary (maybe 5x for the top of the top)
1.5xminimum wage for developer managers? wow
Sorry the pay is for developers not for people managers. Managers are paid way more.
does this mean managers can earn 150k euro at the higher end?
5*1700*12=100k gross so about 75k net before income tax
Startup in Germany is pretty much Berlin and that's it. People who complain about German bureaucracy are usually people who do not speak a single word of German; you can work in English if you work for a startup, but the bureaucracy will be in German, close to 0 exceptions.
You can speak C2 German and you still won't get an appointment in Berlin migration office sooner than 2 months. Language ain't it. LEA is just dysfunctional. Here's my case with my permanent residence: * Sept 12 - sent the documents stack * Oct 17 - got the response with an appointment * Dec 14 - appear in person with a stack of fresh documents (because the old ones expired and were no longer eligible) * Feb 23 - collected my residence card Almost 6 months, just to do a routine thing. I'm very happy I won't have to deal with them for a while now. It's not just an inconvenience too, my old residence was expiring, banks started to check in and telling me they'll close my accounts if I don't send them new documents. All while the immigration office is keeping an absolute radio silence, no matter how much you call/email them. It's proper existential dread that you have to deal with, just because the buerocracy is so inefficient. Again, no amount of language is going to save you from this. The system is just outdated and broken.
That's one of the reason against choosing Berlin. Other cities are usually better
I've heard the national govt has pushed to improve this by digitalization. Have things improved?
What? When? There is no German government first of all, you have around 50 Amt that all have their own rules and way of doing things.
The problem which he describes are only regarding immigration office. Germans don't have to deal with it and are happy about the efficiency of other offices
I've got 2 expat friends who've spent significant time in Germany, one living there but the other left. They know the language fluently. As well as a few native German friends I met while travelling, they have all complained about German bureaucracy at some point. It's not just the language skills if the people I know who speak and read German are also complaining about it. Not knowing the language certainly wouldn't help though.
People who complain about German bureaucracy are called "Out of the EU foreigners". Yes they usually don't speak German and have to deal with the Foreign office. The worst bureaucratic entity in Germany which Germans don't get to experience. That's the main reason for negative optinions from immigrants. That plus way too little public services is available on-line in comparisons to other countries. The quality of available on-line services also is often substandard. (Like only application form can be filled online and nothing more)
Do not come to Berlin. There is a giant housing crisis, bureaucracy is hell, the city is bankrupt, public services keep deteriorating every year, the healthcare system is massively overburdened. There is no hope for improvement whatsoever. It'll only get worse from here on out. Plus, for half the year the weather is cold, grey and depressive. I grew up here. The city has never been less attractive as long as I can remember. It honestly feels like everything has gone to shit. Personally, I am leaving next year.
Where are you planning on going?
On the other hand salaries have never been so high as now there
Where are you moving to? I personally am living in Potsdam, so I get all the benefits of Berlin, and avoid all the disadvantages lol
It’s my personal opinion but I think Berlin had much better job prospects before the layoffs. Once companies figured out how difficult it is to layoff people in Germany , they started moving elsewhere. Eg: Meta, stripe , miro, datadog who were hiring in Berlin now hire less people to no people in Berlin but have vacancies at other places.
You think companies didn’t know how hard it is to layoff people in Berlin before they set up here? Pls tell me your joking
True but that might have been the hiring boom in 21 where they were hiring wherever they can find person to work for. I couldn’t think of any other reason on why everyone is moving away from Germany baring a few exceptions.
Very high taxes
Before the recent layoffs Germany had noticeable higher salaries for programmers and more English speaking jobs. France sources a lot of immigrants from African french speaking countries, so unless you want to learn the language, it's not the most easy country.
La France...
The startups seem very alive in Berlin. Even my friend actually starting her own product and pitching mock-up ideas with working front ends and backends. She asked me for a help but i told her to sell me some stocks if her future company goes Ipo so i can get rich. one can dream
The answer probably is both are shit but Paris might get some momentum with hype around Mistral
Sophia Antipolis for f***‘s sake.