Hi. I know theres alot of hate towards the company when searching basically any information about them, but most of them are from years ago so I'm curious if things are still the same, since I got a job offer just a few days ago. They offered me 1300 gross salary, relocation and all that. The project is Finnish-English Viva Wallet related and includes 18 days of paid training. Some people do say that it heavily depends on the project, and I also got told that since you're a rare language speaker and your project actually contains sensitive financial information and is highly specialized, that they just might treat you better than your average "Netflix customer support" -guy. Could this actually be the case, or should I decline the offer and stay? I am also scared of not being able to get an apartment, but they did say that if it comes down to that, they do have a program for that also and i wont be left for the streets. But I wonder how true that actually is and how is it actually dealt with. I know that rent prices in Athens are also high, but I don't live luxorious life and I always cook my own food, so I honestly think that I would be fine financially. Oh and they offer me 1 year contract right off the bat.

Hi everyone,

Would like to know if anyone who has experienced recently or have worked at State Street Bank in Germany, do they do a background check for a position located in Germany? If yes, what information do they usually check? Thanks for sharing!

I'm male 41, 15 years of experience in sw development, 5 as a team lead, 3 as an EM. Currently working and living in italy.

In the last month, I sent CV's into the southern regions of Germany but I felt the market is very cold. It was looking as a good option, because i would have been able to go there frequently, without relocating .

Any ideas of where i could direction my search? I've experience with remote colleagues, i would prefer not to relocate, but i'm willing to travel .

Hello,

I'm a Java developer in Germany looking to change jobs at the moment.

I have mostly come across Java roles that are hiring which require payment, finance, banking, trading experience.

Now with AI, other types of industrial domains are no longer seem to be using Java. At least that's what I have seen in the market.

The single biggest hurdle that I face is the fact that my CV has absolutely no work to reflect experience in these domains that are majorly hiring for Java roles.

My CV involves a lot of integration and Middleware work using Java. There are extremely few roles that match my CV.

Now comes the problem. I apply to finance related roles in Java and get rejected which is expected.

How do I increase my chances to be considered for Java roles in Financial management domain?

This feels like a blocker because it isn't something that I can try on my own and fake it through the interview.

There are specific questions that can only be answered if you have hands on experience. Any advice on a strategy to achieve this?

I read when Satya became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he focused “growth mindset” and hired psychologists to train alot of employees, from SWE, managers to C level people to build healthy company culture.

And also fired toxic employees including managers.

Because before that Microsoft's culture was toxic and cancer, probably because of Steve ballmer, who were CEO that time.

--

Anyway, what about today in Europe?

Are there any companies known for having a growth mindset and a healthy work culture?

I searched on Reddit and Google, but I can't find real insight if there are any healthy companies nowadays.

Which makes me think, maybe it's time for us programmers who are also exceptional and kind human beings to build our own startups and change the toxic tech industry ourselves?

Ps. I feel like maybe some french companies got those healthy culture? I heard in French culture, they hate those evil toxic rich people who tried to take advantage and gaslight us, normal people.

Otherwise French people will bring a guillotine for some reasons lol

Title kind of says it all, started a month or so ago, any tips on what I should start doing? I was thinking of starting solo game dev with unity first for small scale games, is that good enough to put on a resume in 3 years?

TL;DR: 7 YOE Senior DevOps Engineer in Germany facing a 1-year job search gap. Choosing between a government-funded AWS Solutions Architect Pro or PMP to maximize salary ROI and AI resilience. Which one gets me hired faster right now?

7 YOE DevOps/Cloud Infra Engineer in Germany with a German Master's Degree, B2 Language certification and Scrum PSD-I, CKAD, Azure fundamentals az-900 certification.

Looking for some career advice given current AI shifts. I have been looking for a job for last 1 year!

My background is heavily technical, covering Kubernetes, GitOps, Terraform, CI/CD, Git, Platform Management and multi-cloud (Azure/AWS) across IT consulting (5 years) and HealthTech startups.

I can get a certification fully funded via Agentur für Arbeit (Bildungsgutschein) and am torn between two paths:

1. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02): Moving from infrastructure implementation to high-level architecture. It feels safer from AI automation since it focuses on complex system design, governance, and strategy.
2. Project Management Professional (PMP): Leveraging my team coordination and training background to pivot into management. However, I’m worried about AI automating middle-management tasks and whether PMP holds enough weight in the EU tech space. I have managed small teams and projects before in teaching career before moving into tech.

Goal: Maximize ROI and AI job security over the next 3–5 years in the European tech market. Also keep my self relevant for the upcoming AI wave and global opportunities.

Should I double down on technical architecture (AWS Pro) to climb the engineering ladder, or step away from the keyboard entirely into management (PMP)? Which path makes more sense for a profile like mine to end a 1-year job search fast?

Hi all,

I'm a .NET dev with 5 YOE and I'm looking to move to the Netherlands. I'm an EU citizen but I've never lived in NL. Most of my experience is in desktop and some Blazor the last couple of years.

I'm not aiming for big tech like Booking or Adyen, just mid-sized(ish) companies. The smaller the better but I'm also looking for companies that will pay decently and be willing to do the 30/27% ruling paperwork.

I've never done a live coding interview or properly studied LeetCode, so I'm trying to figure out where to put my prep time.

For those who've interviewed at companies like that recently:

1. How common are LeetCode-style questions? When they do come up, are we talking easy or medium?

2. If not LeetCode, what do the technical rounds usually look like? Take-homes, pair programming, design discussions?

ANY advice is highly appreciated!

Hey all,

I'm interviewing with Proton for backend engineering position.

It's been a very long process, and from previous experiences I know my weak area has always been system design.

Has anyone recently interviewed with proton and share some tips on specific systems to practice and focus on?

Thanks!

Hmm, here is a post from a guy who is getting into programming, he is asking something totally unrelated to my AI-doomer mindset. I have the perfect comment for this post!!

"Hey dude, programming is not the same after AI, heck, it has 3 years max with these newest claude gpt models, I wouldn't bother getting into it".

Heh, I saved that guy. He will now go into a door-handle fixing career and will probably thank me later. I can't believe this guy hasn't heard of AI, what a guy!

Welp, onto the next post!

Hello everyone,

In order to settle in Poland I am looking for a job of a web developper, preferably PHP because i got more than ten years of experience in that but that's not my question

When it comes to remuneration, on some offers i see two different types of contract : work contract or B2B contract. I have done a bit of research and it seems like it comes down to taxes difference but is that the only difference there is ? I have read that b2b contract have less "benefits" but nothing precise enough to get a clear view.

Thanks for the answers if you have any.

Hey, I have 5 yoe and unfortunately I am not at the level where I want to be.

My jobs didn't really offer me any growth opportunities despite asking for them and after 5 years I feel like I lack practical experience in the industry. Things such as code navigation in a foreign codebase, debugging and writing quality code (things which are not tested during interviews). My current job doesn't offer a lot of room for growth...

I am trying to learn in my free time. But I don't know if that's enough.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks. I really wanna stay in this field.

Gemini claimed that German tech jobs deviate from the normal CV order and that I should actually put a section for my tech stack first, then my projects, then my work experience, education, etc. Is this correct?

Hello!

I have been in the workforce for almost 1.5 decades now. Lately, I have been considering what to do next with my career that would earn me more money.

Here is my profile:

• Started as a software engineering analyst (those guys who support production applications and debug code and scripts, but very rarely writes code)
• Became a sysadmin, 3x (UNIX and Linux flavours)
• DevOps engineer (tooling monkey)
• Wrote tens of Ansible roles and playbooks
• DevOps engineer (piece together the application repo and the tools made by the tooling monkeys)

As you can see, I don't have a solid coding and low-level experience. No architectural experience either. It's somewhere in between. I have no masters and my CS bachelors was not that solid.

Some of the options I considered in the past:

• Specialize in a cloud platform - I never had the chance to land a cloud role mainly because of the disconnect between my YoE and the starting pay for people with 0 cloud experience. Nowadays, it feels like the job market is already saturated with 'cloud engineers' with tens of certifications.
• Move to a management role - I never liked navigating company politics and dealing with people's attitudes. I'm confident I can, I just don't like these.

What do you think should be my next career progression based on this? Of course, I am open to putting in the work.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: one path I am considering is still Linux-based but specializing in low-level systems instead of being a sysadmin. For example, working with high-performance networking, memory management, profiling, etc. I recently landed interviews with similar roles (job titles were all Linux Engineer) and I felt like the interviewers were put off because my skills were not 'low-level enough'.

As you all know, with AI, my job as a software engineer has changed a lot.

I got let go from my previous job and was super lucky to get a new one quickly.

However this new one is in an industry that is not very stable (mobile game dev), though my particular company is still growing, the work I do everyday is also not improving my skills that I can bring to the outside; I do bug fixes and make features for the game. And with AI, I am using it to help me out and thus I learn even less now.

I keep on being very critical now on the tasks I am doing now, whether it will save me in my next unemployment season. But it really takes away the joy. I become very depressed, why did I take this job out of desperation, perhaps I could've waited for a better one. Perhaps I should've taken the other offer.

I don't know how to enjoy my work now. It's in such a niche, bla bla bla. People say to collect the paycheck and go home, but in my case, in the saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime", I feel like I am only fed for a day.

I sleep 10 hrs a day now just so I don't feel this anxiety. When I'm awake, I am plagued by these thoughts of I won't be employable in a year from now because of redundancy, AI, etc. and I am not prepared for it.

What should I do? I think even if I go to another job now, in a safer sector e.g. banking or in tech or whatever, without a change in mindset, I will just end up in the same depression and thanklessness. Can someone give me a perspective? Should I do a certification? Should I go to network events? What should I do

In every company I've been in there's this one senior guy that seems to be everywhere. Things go through them, they're obviously quite skilled and well-informed, and they take on a lot of work

How do you become this person? Is it sociability, or raw technical ability, or just saying yes to everything that comes your way?

Any information, blogs, or advice about this is greatly appreciated. I'm sure there's lots of content about it but I can't quite put a name to this phenomenon

Hello
I graduated with a technical degree one year ago, and afterwards did a 1year internship in project management.
Now i have 2 offers:
1- Sales engineer (not quota carrying), I think the company is very interesting and the job too, but the pay isn’t very high, and the role is 100% on site
2- Project manager, this is in a consulting company, the pay is a little bit higher, and the role is remote

I am confused because I’m not sure which direction to choose. I feel like maybe long term SE can have more benefits financially and also open more doors, but due to the current pay I’m honestly not so sure.

I would really appreciate different perspectives on this.
Thanks for reading

The announcement some months ago of an RTO policy with 3 mandatory office days starting in 2027 is already history… management just changed it to 5 days. Just do layoffs if you want to get rid of people—I know this is cheaper, but give the survivors some quality of life. Not happy!

The tech job market is toasted in Germany for a long time now and I have been looking for a job for over a year and I am tired of those stingy and greedy companies. I am a senior SW with 10+ years of experience worked with large and medium companies tech stack mostly in the Typescript realm. Trying to get a salary in the range of 80k€ though not sure if this is a big ask now given this is lower than my previous salary (100k€). I have PR.

I am wondering if anyone succeeded in finding a dignified tech job from neighboring countries (UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, ...etc) while still living here? What platforms did you use? Is it as hard as here or a bit relatively easier?

Hi everyone!

I was fortunate enough to receive a TM for an L3 position at Google Munich, and I'm currently discussing compensation with the recruiter.

Based on my research so far, the package seems to be roughly:

• Base salary: €84k–€87k
• Target bonus: 15%
• Stock grant: Around 0.6 yearly base salary over four years ~ 50k

From these information, I'm estimating first-year TC at around €110k , excluding any sign-on bonus.

For anyone currently at Google Munich or familiar with recent L3 offers in Germany, does this estimate sound realistic? I'd especially appreciate insights into the typical TC range and how much flexibility there might be during negotiations.

Thanks!

For context, I’m a frontend developer in Eastern Europe with about 2.5 years of experience. I work with TypeScript, Vue and React, and I’ve also built and shipped features for a React Native mobile app. I currently make around €1,100/month net, no other benefits.

Is my salary normal for this experience and region, or am I underpaid? And how much should I expect at my level of experience?

LE: the country is Romania

Do companies tell devs like bro go build Jira with Claude so we dont have to pay for them?

And IT team will get some bonus

Hey, need some outside opinions on this.

Quick context: take-home pay is basically the same in both cases. The difference is mostly on paper.

I'm early 20s, have an MSc and about 2 years of research experience, based in Portugal.

Current job: startup in Portugal, but I'm technically employed by a consultancy on a fixed-term contract. 2 days remote. Around 50k gross, plus a good chunk paid as expense reimbursements, a setup I'm not really comfortable with. The upside is the role: I'm pretty central to the project, touching a lot of different stuff and basically building something from scratch, which would be a great story later. Right now it's mostly regular software dev, and the research part I actually want is "coming later", but they've promised interesting work. They've also hinted at hiring me directly in a year or so, but nothing in writing. I really like the field and the team.

Offer: foreign startup, fully remote, permanent contract through an EOR. Research from day one. 80k gross, all proper salary, plus good health insurance and stock options. The field is less exciting to me, but closer to what I'm good at. I'd be joining an existing product, so probably less ownership at first.

So it's basically:

- exciting field, lots of ownership, zero-to-one story, but low official salary, an iffy contract setup and research only "later"

- vs research now, clean contract, 80k on paper, fully remote, but less exciting and less ownership

Questions:

- which would you pick at this stage of a career?

- does having 80k as your last salary actually help much when negotiating later, especially for jobs abroad?

- anyone worked through an EOR for a while? Was it stable?

Thanks

If you think about it devs who have been to a startup from 0 at seed level to 100m USD valuation or Unicorn or until the startup IPO is kinda impressive lmfao

those devs they also do other roles, not just coding 24/7 as well lol

I heard somewhere those devs in Sillicon Valley, they can get job easily since they got a huge connection

I'm a senior hands-on IC considering two opportunities:

Option A: Different industry, lower salary (-15%), but mature engineering practices, modern tooling, strong technical peers and good work culture. Will basically allow me to work directly with AI tooling, deployment and pave the way for that.

Option B: Familiar industry, salary on par with my current, outdated tech stack and development practices. However, leadership seems genuinely interested in giving me the freedom to modernize tooling, automation and workflows, especially with "AI" - AI seeming non-existent in the organization.

Leaving current role due to epic org dysfunction and empire builders and low morale and people leaving. The works. No stock options but the salary is a "golden handcuff".

Both seem to offer good work-life balance, B maybe more set in stone for 2 WFH days whereas the first is "up to 2 days at home".

I'm torn between learning from an established engineering environment and having the opportunity to build and modernize one myself.

Has anyone faced a similar choice?