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1474295912 | 9 years ago

VisualMeta GmbH in Berlin. They're a 'start-up' backed by Axel Springer, Berlin.

They fired about 60-70 people recently, some of them on their first day of work. Most of their devs come from non-existent countries (China/Eritrea/Pakistan etc) and they're paid abysmally (€32-34k).

It's a surprise that this news wasn't covered at all in Berlin start-up press.

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expertentipp|9 years ago

> Berlin... 'start-up'

> backed by Axel Springer

These are already two red flags, enough for a person familiar with the Germany's job and tech markets to stay away.

elcct|9 years ago

Care to elaborate?

Raed667|9 years ago

34k € is a bad salary in Germany? Because I think it is an average 1st salary in France (or the companies I've been talking to are also planning to get me paid abysmally)

kriro|9 years ago

For a developer I'd say yes. For comparison the yearly salary for an entry level academic (masters->university) is about 44k € gross/year (which more or less automatically goes up to about 49k after one year). I'd expect a decent entry level developer to make at least that.

hocuspocus|9 years ago

Social contributions are a much bigger part of your gross salary in Germany. 34k would be ~28k in France.

My company hires new grads around 50k and I guess decent startups who make people relocate across continents should pay at least 45k.

1474295912|9 years ago

34k ain't bad, but average salaries for Experienced Java devs with 5+ years of experience are in the range of 50-55k.

Also by paying less than blue card limit, the devs are basically tied to VisualMeta. Most of the devs don't know German system well and thus are being taken advantage of.

slau|9 years ago

Depends on where you live. If you're near a larger city or not. There's a huge discrepancy in salaries Due to geography (and also massively depends on your skill set, obviously).

To give you a frame of reference, I was pretty well paid in Perpignan after a few years in a company (a bit north of 40k€). The junior devs I hired got south of 24k€.

throwaway1892|9 years ago

As another said, it is heavily dependent on location.

For a dev job around Paris, it is very low.

1474295912|9 years ago

Edit: I meant "Non-EU" countries, not non-existent.

rshaban|9 years ago

A helpful clarification :)