As if outsourcing wasn't a common trend across Western companies "thanks" to globalization and the utter dominance of US-american neoliberalism.
> and companies' tradition of rewarding management incompetence over technical competence
Again, quite common - the "old" Soziale Marktwirtschaft moguls with decades-long visions would not let today's next-quarter-only shit fly for long.
> Consequently, Germany's most brilliant tech minds leave for The Valley, Zurich or London.
Care to have a source for SV and London? People avoid SV/USA due to the current President and London due to the Brexit uncertainity - in fact, whoever can flees from the UK before Johnson drives everything into the ground. Only correct point is Switzerland but that's not surprising since their wages run way, way higher than Germanys across the board...
The German job market is precisely as described by GP: you are competing all the time with remote people in countries with much smaller cost of living and the wages are super low compared to aforementioned places. Germany has great schools, and medical system and I think when/if I want to raise a family I'll come back. But until then I want to make money and you do this while it's easy to move around.
You can say this is a cultural problem but I think the problem is different: there is just no big software industry in Germany. It's mostly SAP salespeople, development of various custom ISV software and a small startup scene in Berlin. Most German companies don't need good software for the stuff they are doing.
As for the software quality, it is everywhere the same when the main business is not selling software packages.
Companies just care that their use cases are covered, no matter how it looks under the hood.
I could write software on paper and deploy by magic, it would be ok for them. And why not, they make money selling other stuff. Then a customer I haven't been working for a very long time calls me asking if I got a copy of their production VM, even many years ago would be ok (obviously I didn't) because they got hit by ransomware years after having stopped to do backups, maybe because it was too inconvenient.
I was under the impression that the likes of Lisbon are great if you earn above average wage, and the surf is awesome.
Tech in Lisbon not comparable to Germany?
This is not something I ever encountered. Are you sure you are familiar with real job markets? If you're looking for an interesting job (in Munich), feel free to contact me.
As someone who was in that position ca. 20 years ago and then moved to SV for almost a decade: I don't think I would have dare to make such a sweeping claim as you:
> The German job market is precisely as described by GP
As a completely new entry into the job market, despite plenty of real work experience (during the last two years of my study the study was "secondary", I managed to make all major university projects about things I needed to do at work anyway), how could I possibly have know enough? I know I never had that feeling.
I actually did move to SV immediately so I can understand what draws you, no argument there. Still, I returned after almost a decade.
I think you are waayyyyyy overvaluing your own experience level. Where does such confidence come from? You cannot know even 1% of the German IT job market given how many medium sized of importance there are. Even in the US there is a large number of software businesses nobody has ever heard of because they are in a niche. For example, I once consulted for a company in Fort Worth (TX) where software for giants like Walmart was written. I think even here in this forum very few people would have heard of that company.
Occasionally someone, often magazines, ask about-to-be-finished students where they want to work. Inevitably the top ten are a handful of major names. That says a lot about students knowledge about potential employers, which seems to consist of only a few names of the already well-known few big companies. It says nothing at all about the reality of the far more diverse job market and the myriad of interesting options at thousands of other interesting companies.
Example: Top companies to work for,
- Students of business: https://www.arbeitgeber-ranking.de/rankings/studenten/bereic...
- Students of engineering: https://www.arbeitgeber-ranking.de/rankings/studenten/bereic...
If you just drive through Germany blindly, without a map, you'll find company after company that would never be listed here because they are not a mass-market brand.
So by all means, do go to SV, it's certainly a great experience. Just don't overvalue your own experience, and question why you are so confident in your claims and generalizing your own very limited experience.
Now, for my part, I came to the conclusion software is just a tool and, as that tool, I want to be used for things that matter to me. Since I think that the only thing that matters now are fighting poverty, climate change, I really wonder what I'm gonna do...
And I can assure you, when I was at your age, all my life was oriented to make one and only one thing : 3D engines for video games, which I did.
So you see, life is full of surprise :-)
As for well-known vs not well known: usually bigger companies have more employee protections, more career possibilities, pay better, etc. In small companies you have more power and control, and to some this makes them more interesting. I think larger companies are better but maybe I'll be annoyed by the bureocracy and switch to a smaller company, idk :).
If your lifestyle is to spend most of your paycheck (which is a fine lifestyle btw, I don't want to be judgemental), then I think Berlin is much greater than SV. The fewer money you get is at the same time more powerful in Berlin. If you have children, even more so.
But you know you maybe want to buy a flat or house, but for that you need money. It's hard and takes years to use your SV/London wage to buy SV/London flats. It's hard to use your Berlin wage to buy Berlin flats. It is comparatively easy though to use your SV/London wage to buy a Berlin flat.
Germany is not unattractive for me on a permanent basis, but I think in the current situation I'm in, other places are more attractive.
Also I might be wrong, I'll conduct a final assessment once I graduated and have concrete job and wage offers and can do cost of living calculations and how much I'll be able to save after deducing all costs I expend.
_some_ people do. Others allow themselves different opinions to this president and even to their prospects in SV
> and London due to the Brexit uncertainity
True
> before Johnson drives everything into the ground
... but also here there are different opinions concerning the nature of this uncertainty
IMO, politics and stuff is necessary, but I really wish we could argue /debate respectfully without the damn flame wars everywhere of late. It seriously puts me off.
Politics at this scale are life changing matters, and unfortunately with both the US and the UK governments it is clear that they are not run by competent people with a plan but by people who literally don't have any fixed opinion except nationalism - and that means that, as an immigrant, you're rock bottom of the ladder.
