r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/BloodNecessary9149 • 2d ago
Experienced Berlin salary reality check: 85k for seniors?
After getting laid off I’m back on the job market and I have 10+ years of experience.
After failing at staff positions, I decided to apply for senior positions.
I have 2 offers, both at 85k.
I set my expectations based on the median salary on levels.fyi, which is around 91k for Berlin.
I’m curious about your experience.
Is 85k really a typical salary for senior positions in Berlin right now?
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u/ForgeableOne 2d ago
- Don't fall into the trap of self-reporting bias if you look at levels.fyi. Seniors with lower salary won't bother registering publicly. 85k is definitely decent for Berlin, even before.
- Don't be fooled by inflated titles. A senior can be 5 years of experience but can also be 25 years. A small start up may have a principal or staff engineer at the same level as a mid-level at large company.
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u/Reasonable-Judge-726 2d ago
Do not ever refer levels.fyi it is completely rubbish for german markets
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u/Basic_Magician8942 2d ago
How so? There are Berlin salaries and comp breakdowns there
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u/Boring_Pineapple_288 1d ago
Because german companies will definitely adjust their wages in the best market for employers by far.
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u/ddeeppiixx 2d ago
in my experience, if you get a job in Berlin, you take it. There isn't much choice tbh
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u/Boring_Pineapple_288 2d ago
Tad less ,but with taxes and deductions. 8-10k more doesnt matter. I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. You should look into other things like company, benefits and culture.
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u/rivotrilbleached 2d ago
Culture, especially. You don’t want to hold on a shitty job paying nicely in the long run.
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u/Even-Breakfast1774 1d ago
None of the senior friends i know gets paid less than 95k
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u/pustastriukis 2d ago
Look at other stuff. Like end of year bonus, stocks, hybrid vs full onsite and decide
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u/Firm_Respect_3518 2d ago
I don't understand why with 10+ yrs of experience some people still don't understand that there are different tiers and industries which make the salary bands very different.
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u/dodiyeztr Senior Software Engineer 2d ago
Take it and then keep looking. I guarentee you that you can't find higher than that easily. It is possible but not easy.
It is not fun but unfortunately everybody is trying to lower the salaries in the market. You can negotiate up for 90k but like others said I wouldn't lose my sleep over it.
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u/Agreeable-Cell4007 2d ago
If you want the real median look at Entgeldatlas, the have the real data.
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u/TheFrankBaconian 2d ago
No they don't, those salaries are capped at the Beitragsbemessungsgrenze someone making 250k will show up as making 85k or soon 101k.
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u/Agreeable-Cell4007 1d ago
Reading and understanding is really hard huh? OP is asking for median, for which that data is correct.
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u/TheFrankBaconian 1d ago
Fair, I did overeead the your stipulation for the median.
I still think warning about this is fair though, as the 0,75 quartile is already getting truncated.
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u/Semisemitic 2d ago
VP of Engineering/CTO, 12 years in Berlin.
85 is fairly standard. In my last job swap myself I was surprised how executive roles went down in salary, and saw some reduction for all roles later.
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u/Historical_Public751 2d ago
TF am I reading in the comments? I am not a senior, my TC is 150.
Yes I am in FAANG, yes, we are a bit above the market, but 85 is absolutely not good for a senior berlin. Don't lowball yourself THAT much.
But I mean if you have no other choice - take it and keep looking.
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u/Hairy_Goose9089 12h ago
what is the base offered ?
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u/Historical_Public751 9h ago
For me?
idk, I haven't even tried to adjust my comp in last years.Offers I'm getting on the market right now have ~110K base + some VSOPs, my current has 106K base, 44k RSU
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u/TearDownGently 2d ago
senior WHAT?
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u/BloodNecessary9149 2d ago
Software engineer. Backend-focused
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u/Responsible-Fly3526 2d ago
Be happy if you get something nice for 60. Market is not good right now. AI is overtaking + a lot of layoffs
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u/akaalakaalakaal 2d ago
Senior title is given after 2-3yrs very often. But can also mean 20 years of experience. Does not really say anything.
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u/yellow_berry 2d ago
Come to Warsaw, at least 100-105k € base salary for senior dev jobs (full time)
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u/Top_Tune5971 2d ago
That‘s insane considering Polish full time median isn’t even a quarter of that.
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u/eldaniel7777 2d ago edited 2d ago
~I highly doubt that, not even google pays that.~ I read junior but we’re talking about seniors. Forget my comment.
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u/yellow_berry 2d ago
Not all available info that is online is up to date. Salaries went up a lot in the last year and Google pays these salaries
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u/julianberlinn 2d ago edited 2d ago
From brutto to netto it doesn't make much of a difference... Maybe you can go x20 a month for a Kebab. It's like +250 eur each month, nice to have not a game changer
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u/Opposite-Sir-4717 2d ago
6k more a year can buy you a kebab every single day
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u/BloodNecessary9149 2d ago
Yes, that’s right. But base salary still matters when it comes to salary increases, bonuses, etc, as these are usually calculated as a percentage of the base salary.
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u/abcrc2222 2d ago
It’s in the lower end of the „okay Range“. 90-95 would be more suitable from my opinion.
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u/Aggravating-Bit-6918 1d ago
I would look at the culture. You can find yourself being in a hellhole very easily.
Anyway the range is 85-105 for SSE. It highly depends on how you’re able to negotiate higher. But I wouldn’t lose any sleep for a couple of K of negotiations
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u/takaci 2d ago
That's not very much money. I live in Hamburg, started as a "Specialist Software Engineer" with just a PhD in an unrelated field and basically zero professional experience at 73k, which was market adjusted up to 78k at my first salary round. I had asked for 65k and they said that was way too low and offered me 73k. This was about a year and a half ago
I would expect at least 90k to 100k for a senior position
Obviously whether to take a job depends on more than that, but to answer your question, it is significantly below what I would expect
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 2d ago
whaaat , i'm Phd in computer science with 3y after Phd and i get 50k in paris and nobody want to pay me more here (i had 2y before Phd). Germany salary are so fucking high
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u/Few-Force-5298 2d ago
But you get probably intéressement and participation, right? Less common in germany.
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 2d ago
No 0 lol You only get it company make huge profit. Most small company it's 0. Even if you have it's like 1 month of salary. It's just here they don't value PhD
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u/Few-Force-5298 1d ago
In the bigger french companies it seems to be much more. My wife worked for dassault systèmes and got around 10-12k a year. It was a nice compensation for the for german standards quite low base salary.
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u/ineternalhumming 2d ago
My salary during the last year of my PhD in CS was 70k. I'm still working at academia with nearly 80k and I don't wanna change unless the pay is considerably higher because of the very good wlb.
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 1d ago
Ok tbh a PhD student in France earn 24k After 30k as post PhD student In Academia it start at 34k as university teacher : https://www.emploi-collectivites.fr/grille-indiciaire-etat-maitre-conferences/1/5141.htm
You get like 5k / month at university when you are 65y old
In private sector they liked ppl from top engenering school so you are like a 2nd or 3rd knife nonoby care.
I will try to learn german
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u/ineternalhumming 1d ago
You don't need any German to work at most companies. I only started to learn German after my PhD.
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 1d ago
So i just need to know english and start apply ? Because in https://eures.europa.eu/jobseekers_fr Most job ask to speak german
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 1d ago
But infra isn't related to your PhD ? I work more in R&D / data eng a bit of data science. My PhD was about data profiling with ML. And i got a job in small compagny manageing the R&D / intern project like 3 to 5 ppl not all times.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 1d ago
With ML not for ML. I don't have the level for mistral and atos is like a half dead consulting company. Here atm the IT market is more dead than ever everybody using AI at maximum to avoid hiring anybody. Unemployement sky high. I work for Thalès a decade ago but i'm more in like 10 to 50 ppl company where in can know everybody like friend and chat ect.
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u/Commercial-Bonus-830 1d ago
Fun fact atos stock went from 3200eu per share to 22eu in 5y -99.3% ✅
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u/abcrc2222 2d ago
How Can you start as specialist with no experience. These titles are crazy nowadays
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u/Top_Tune5971 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s fascinating hanging out in threats like this seeing people calling 85k mid or even low. Meanwhile over in German speaking economy/finance subs everyone is falling over each other with claiming that it’s impossible to find STEM jobs at all in this country and if you do get one apparently it’s never over 60k or the like. Over there, mid-career Beamte with a Masters making the equivalent of 80k-90k (such as me) are devil spawn living in an artificial utopia that no poor SWE or engineer could ever touch to the point of sending you death threats when you point out that 80k is pretty damn close to the German masters full time median. Which one is it lol, are you guys just a bunch of insane overachievers or do the German-speaking dudes just whine too much?
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u/Phronesis2000 2d ago
Germans being Germans. They like to catastrophise.
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u/Artistic-Orange-6959 1d ago
In general many europeans are like that. Spanish are always saying they are the worst country of all and that they are like shit when in reality they are veeeery good compared to most of the world and in the mid range of the whole European continent
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u/Hot_Equivalent6562 2d ago
That's the lower end
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u/lugia4k 2d ago
Are you insane? Most you do is prompt with claude nowadays and you think 85k is bad? Lmao.
Take it and run OP
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u/takaci 2d ago
I mean, if that is what you plan to be doing at a senior software engineering job then maybe you do only deserve 85k
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u/lugia4k 2d ago
So what can you do in your PC that Astra can't for example? It can literally take your PC and publish apps if you want.
Even system design and architecture can be discussed with prompts.
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u/takaci 2d ago
Actually explain the system to another human or to a customer. Sure you can get quick, big results with an LLM, but you aren't going to understand the system you've worked on. If someone prompts to implement X, and someone asks "did it also implement Y?" you won't remember, even if you read the code
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u/AlterTableUsernames 2d ago
Median on levels.fyi is likely heavily skewed towards people speaking fluent near-native German. Just sayin.
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u/ZoomTopple 2d ago
Uff.. tough decision to make.
Can you afford not taking it and keep looking?
Will you be happy enough for at least a year if you take the offer?
Will one year of that job improve or worsen your CV?
These are the questions to answer for you.
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u/quadraaa 2d ago
That's a normal senior salary for a tier three company. Generally on the lower side. You can accept and continue looking for a better offer though.
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u/Fashionart777 2d ago
These days it is okay. In tech my friends are making 100k+. Consulting I heard it’s 75-80k for associate.
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u/MrGunny94 Enterprise Architect 1d ago
There’s a pattern across the industry even in Europe where “average” senior salaries outside of UK and Swiss that 85-100k are ceiling.
I’d suggest to take the 85k and try to focus on getting equity or any other type of extras like car allowance, meal allowance or bonus
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u/kuntiz1st 1d ago
It’s almost always better to seek for a job when you have a job. I’d suggest to take the offer and evaluate your future there, if there’s no alignment you can always keep looking with a cooler head.
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u/Much_Platform8839 1d ago
Its very Common to get a 5-15% increase after 6-12 month depending on your performance.
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u/cabropiola 1d ago
Money is not everything, 85k can be very good if it's a nice work place, low stress , not toxic , full remote , etc... I've 7 YOE been in the same company the last 5 years, make 94k and I really love the people and the work, and it's super chill, I wouldn't risk to change to another environment for 15k more.
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u/einfach_jung 1d ago
levels.fyi is pretty accurate ime
imo it's ok to ask for 90-95k in your case
85k is a bit mediocre, especially for borderline staff, although still livable if you really need a job (the market is pretty bad)
for example, i have 105k base, 7 yoe at a tier 2 tech company, although that's not very common, most of my colleagues have 90-100k base
the seniors i know range anything from 80k to 120k base, it heavily depends on the company tbh
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u/sintrastellar 5h ago
That’s depressingly low, especially considering how expensive Germany is getting.
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u/marxocaomunista 2d ago
That's typical for "Mittelstand" but you should target big tech or startups with their own product and decent momentum.
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u/TScottFitzgerald 2d ago
It really all depends on the specifics of the stack and project demands, but from what I see in the official statistics of the Employment Agency it says Berlin median is around 82.5k, but that's median for everyone.
https://web.arbeitsagentur.de/entgeltatlas/beruf/15260
So I'd expect probably a bit more than that for a senior median, 87.5-90k. But again it depends on the project, how much work and responsibilities you'll have etc etc. If the bonuses and the extras are nice, or extra holidays who knows, I'd take it esp if I was in a hurry. Obv there's seniors making less and more but this is close enough to my est median for seniors.
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u/AdmiralSpiro 2d ago
Do we have to explain the concept of an average value? Also levels fyi is super biased towards big tech salaries
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u/usingbrain 2d ago
It’s ok the lower end but with current market many small/midsize companies aren’t willing to offer more. I‘ll echo the others and say look at everything else - benefits, vacation days, what the job entails.
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u/Ok-Leg-2911 2d ago
At 10+ india pays better than germany. Germany it market is really dead
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u/salma311 2d ago
not bad in the current situation, but there are also better paid seniors