Show HN: Software Developer salaries in Germany by technology and city (opens in new tab)

Saleries are typically given before taxes. Taxes in Germany are, for the better or worse, fairly high, higher than in the USA (sales tax is much higher). Expect some 42% income tax if you earn well.

The church tax ("Kirchensteuer") applies if you are (declared) member of either dominant religion (Lutheran protestant or Catholic christian). It's the state which levies the tax, but only as a service to the church to which the funds are passed. It is about 10% of the income tax, i.e. about 4% of your taxable income.

Usually you name the salaries before taxes and social security, because what you get payed depends on a lot of other factors. The church tax are 9% (or in Bavaria and Baden-Würrtemberg 8%) of the amount of income tax, and they themselves are tax-deductible again (a bit like donations to other charitable causes). Also the churches have to pay a fee of IIRC 3% of that tax to the federal budget. The state basically acts as a service provider. It is also opt-in for the various confessions to make use of that right. Many eligible religions organizations choose not to.

The historical reason is that in the 19th century the the still absolutist states in the territory of Germany took away assets from the churches that they used to fund their parishes, but they gave them the right to levy taxes as compensation.

The tax is collected by the state and sent to the church. No politician decided to take money here.

The real scandal is that the German state subsidizes the churches tax collection. We are not a secular state.

>apparently there is a 9% tax if you belong to a church. I think it's more like 1-2% on gross income. I just ran it in some dodgy online calculator and I would be paying 2%, but it's 9% on some <technical german term for fictitious tax income?>

I used to know these german taxation words, kind of, but it's a bit too late to go looking them up again.

Calling it awfully low is bit of stretch. I would have expected the top 10% to be higher but median not that different. I suppose HN attracts Crème de la Crème of German devs who might be earning higher because these numbers look quite alright to me. I get lot of XING jobs notification with salary ranges mentioned on it and majority of them have like 60K-80K salary ranges.

I've seen quite a few job positions in the German public sector that where trying to hire people with a CS education on a E8, which will be something around 36.000 euro per annum before taxes and social security. Although, there are extremely underpaying employers in the private sector as well. At the end of 2015 when I was a fresh graduate a company offered me 26000 (with a 42h week and 24 vacation days) for a Junior Java EE position, which even then was an offer which required a bit of chuzpah, to say the least...

For public services, entry level sw engineering with a master's degree would put you at ~52k€ (TVöD E13 I); with 1 yr of experience you would get ~+5k€; with around 3 yrs of experience you would get ~+9k€, surpassing the median salary if you have a master's degree. With a bachelor's degree you'd start at ~46k (TVöD E11 I, though E10 would be possible, too) and would need to wait a bit longer until you surpass the median. Note that German public services generally base your base pay on your qualification (your degree), only then can your experience "shift" the base pay upwards. Also note that starting next year, they will get a 10 % salary increase...

Tl;dr public service employees earn pretty average

Unfortunately, these too-low lower bands are negatively impacting the job market for everyone. Companies have no incentive to increase their pay if they know they'll always find someone willing to take the minimum band for a couple of years just to get into the country.

IMHO, the minimum salary required for a blue card/work visa, in any country not just Germany, should be slightly above what the median wage is for locals in similar positions as the point of skilled immigration should be to uplift the market, otherwise it's just another wage suppression scheme with extra steps that only benefits the employers at the expense of the workforce which now have less bargaining power.

It could also be selection bias at play.

Places like HN and r/CScareerquestionsEU tend to mostly attract career focused SW engineers who are always chasing to maximize compensation, interviewing, job hopping, sharpening their skills, learning new languages, having side projects, applying mostly at FANGs and product focused start-ups, etc. so it's normal for them to see high wages wherever they look, but when I look at my real world friends who aren't in these communities, nor are they too deep into chasing compensation or learning new tech, and are working at no-name companies, their wages are indeed quite low.

There's definitely different bubbles people live in, and this can skew your perspective either way, but I feel like HN definitely does not represent the average, but more the upper percentile.

Hamburg recently, I was offered 2K less than the polite minimum in the range I had to suggest (the company never suggested any range to begin with, should have been a warning). Offer was 75K, I was very unimpressed, TBH. Huge company.

I wanted to move to Austria, because my wife is from there, but the salaries just make it untenable compared to Germany, especially when you consider that the COL is about the same or even higher in many places.

Because Austria is not a tech hub. It's a retirement home for the local boomers and a museum for milking tourists selling them chocolate balls with pictures of dead musicians ;)

Would you mind saying which city and which wage?

Yes, before tax, and before social security and other deductions.