Your ticket to Berlin as a Software Engineer — Part 2
This is the second article of a series of articles on getting to Berlin as a software engineer.
By now you have received your first invitation for an interview. part 1 of the series covered that. This article will discuss topics around interviews and job offers. You’re now one step closer to getting into Berlin.
Tech interviews in Berlin usually consist of 3–4 rounds of interviews including the first “chat” with the recruiter. Mind that, “chat” with the recruiter is actually an interview.
The first round of interviews
The initial chat with the prospective employer’s recruiting team is the starting point of your series of interviews. This chat will test your attitude and motivation around joining the company and verify if your experience matches the job description they interview for.
Introduction about you and your work experience
Be prepared with a short and interesting introduction about yourself. Summarize and explain your work experience, and the tech stack you are familiar with. Make sure to read the job posting you applied for, and highlight the technologies required for the job when you explain your experience.
Why do you want to join the company and why do you apply for the job?
Companies in Berlin, especially startups actually love to see if you’re aligning with the company’s vision and mission. So do take a small time to do your research about the company. They might also ask questions to verify if you are ready to relocate to Berlin and if you are confident about that. Most of all, be honest and candid about your motivation.
Your salary expectations
Do some research about your job on Glassdoor and get an idea about the average salary. For a software engineer, Annual compensation can be in the range of Euro 55.000 — Euro 80.000.
Some basic-level technical questions
Some recruiters tend to ask basic technical questions. A good example of this would be recruiters from Meta(formerly Facebook) asking about the time complexity of sorting algorithms.
At the end of the interview, most probably they will indicate whether they like to move you forward in the hiring process. So, this interview will end with either a take-home assignment or an invitation to a technical interview.
The second round of interview/s
This is mostly a technical round. Rather than asking questions about technologies, they tend to ask questions based on scenarios. With a basic scenario, interviewers will go deep and evaluate our knowledge. Some of these rounds may end with a coding challenge. Though it is called a coding challenge, the questions tend to be much simpler. And interviewers will actively help you to get to a solution. There can be one or few such rounds and you will probably get interviewed by the team members you’re going to be a part of.
Note: This is a general idea about the technical interviews, it might vary from company to company. Do some research about the interview for your position in your company on Glassdoor.
Bar raiser
This is also typically a technical interview and will be done by someone from outside the team you’re being hired for. This can be a bit challenging and its objective is to usually identify the level of skills a candidate might have. This is also done so that the organization can eliminate any biases included in previous interviews. This step will likely decide which designation you get and will have an impact on the total offer.
The offer
If you’re successful in the above steps you will likely receive an offer within a week from the last interview. There you can negotiate your pay, your relocation package, and your position. At this point, you can either accept or reject an offer. Usually, your offer will be called an “Unlimited contract” which means a permanent position within the company.
Your offer may contain 3 agreements. One agreement describes your work arrangement. The second one will describe on-call duty if requires and the third one describe your relocation package.
Job role/position
Also, during the offer discussion, you will have discussions about your position. Generally, engineering and management are considered two different career paths. So if you’re progressing through the career ladder as an engineer, you’re not expected to demonstrate man-management skills. Also, the technical job roles here are a bit different from what we find in Sri Lanka.
The engineering track is called the individual contributor or IC track. You can have a look at it by following the below URL.
https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Google,Facebook,Microsoft&track=Software%20Engineer
The position you receive will be based on the years of experience you have and the outcome of the bar raiser interview.
Compensation
Your total compensation can be a combination of 3 segments. Those are base salary, bonus & equity. Bonuses and equity can be present or not present in your compensation. Also, the monetary value of bonuses and equity can be varied and it depends on multiple factors such as overall company performance and economic situation. More information on this can be found here.
When you’re considering your salary, you should take into consideration of the net salary you will receive. Germany and other European countries have higher income taxes and compulsory contributions. The tax percentages are different for each city. You can use the following salary calculator to find out exactly how much will be your net salary.
https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/
You’re compiled by law to pay health insurance, KV additional pay, pension insurance, unemployment insurance, and income tax from your gross salary. The compulsory contributions can amount to 30%-45% of your gross salary.
Also, as a software engineer from outside of Germany, you will have to obtain a Visa to work. There are two types of visas available,
1. Blue card EU visa
2. IT specialist visa
To obtain a Blue card EU visa, you must have a degree and salary above EUR 56.400 per annum. EUR 56.400 per annum is way above the average salary in Berlin. A Blue card EU visa gives you some other benefits which are lacking in an IT specialist visa. More on Visa types will be discussed in the next article
The biggest expense you have to bear when you’re living in Berlin is rent. The general rule of thumb is to go for a rental not more than 1/3 of your household net income. Landlords will consider that when awarding a rental agreement. The cost of living explained here is generally accurate.
You can also optimize your net earnings by picking the right health insurance policy for you. From the first day of work, you’re compulsorily insured by one of the public health insurance providers. But if you want to increase your net earnings, you can later switch to private health insurance. The caveat of this is you can’t switch from private insurance to public insurance.
Relocation package
The company may offer you a relocation package. It can take multiple forms. Generally, it can either be a lump sum or a reimbursement model where a ceiling value is defined. This segment of your relocation package alone could be from Euro 2.500 to euro 10.000. In most cases, your company will hand over your relocation to a 3rd party relocation agent. They are “supposed” to accommodate your relocation to Berlin. The services can vary from assistance for visas for you and your family to finding you temporary and long-term accommodations.
On-call duties
On-call duty, if present, is paid. As software engineers, you may have come across issues in production which disrupt your night’s rest. In Germany, during 2 work starting points, an employee must observe 11 or 12 hours of rest (Correct me if I am wrong). For resolving such issues you will generally be compensated and you will be compensated for just being on call. Make sure you clarify these with your employer’s HR department.
A video on Salaries in Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwli8DPjYoI
In the next article, I will discuss on Visa process for Sri Lankans. Till then ciao :)
If you have missed the first article, it can be found here https://dinanjana.medium.com/your-ticket-to-berlin-as-a-software-engineer-part-1-28dc9e84fe96
