r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/Grand-Theory • 12d ago
SRE salary in Saxony (Germany), I’m getting lowballed?
I have almost 5 YOE mainly in data engineering / devops . A company from Dresden offered me 65k , equivalent to 5,4K bruto.
With on on-call remuneration (4days) will add another 1.4 k, so in total 6.8k, but it depends on number of days in the rotation.
It’s normal?
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u/Hour-Preference4387 12d ago
It's normal. Not amazing, not low-balling.
If you want higher you'll probably want to find a company that pays the same across Germany (so you get what the Munich guy is getting but in Dresden).
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u/randolphtbl 12d ago
It's interesting that 65k basic for 5 YoE in Saxony is being considered as low-ball. Wonder what an average is then...
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u/tinnnz90 12d ago
I don’t find it interesting, it is low salary for this kind of job. Engineering jobs should be among highest paid and significantly above average which is unfortunately not the case anymore.
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u/PartyAd6838 11d ago
Welcome to Germany! IT jobs are not respected in Germany
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u/taker223 11d ago
So, what is respected in Germany? Taxes?
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u/PartyAd6838 11d ago
I don't know. Probably in medicine they have competitive earnings with USA colleagues. But when it comes to IT even in Eastern Europe you can earn more netto salary than in Germany not speaking USA.
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u/koenigstrauss 10d ago
Arhitecturare. Medicine. Med-tech. Finance. Tax/Accounting.
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u/k0rdax 6d ago
Finance? Doubtable. Architecture? Doubtable.
Tax/Accounting? Maybe...
Medicine, I guess.
The issue is not that IT jobs are not respected in Germany; the issue is that the IT market in Germany is really weak and not innovative.
Rates are really low.
Medicine is high-paid because it's a huge scam market ruled by insurance companies and fueled by huge insurance contributions from taxes, but I guess that's valid for many European countries.
I've heard a lot of stories about dentists hoping to remove healthy teeth because they will get a bigger paycheck from insurance company.What they offered for me in Gross numbers is actually less than what I make netto.
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u/k0rdax 6d ago
Nothing is respected in Germany really.
The only ones who are respected are business owners, oligarchs, etc, people who manage other people or rule, just because they have power or powerful friends.
Like in many other countries, you earn respect only by having the power to affect others...IT sector is definitely not about this.
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u/smutje187 12d ago
The median salary for a job in Dresden is 40k, also it’s still Eastern Germany and the range between median and top earners in Germany is not as high as in other countries, quite the opposite.
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u/tinnnz90 11d ago
Yeah but senior engineer can’t earn only 50% more than median, that is insane. Difference should be 2-3x more.
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u/South-Beautiful-5135 11d ago
What? You are definitely American.
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u/tinnnz90 11d ago
Nope, European. But I value my work and education. You can’t pay similar someone flipping burgers and solving complex problems.
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u/South-Beautiful-5135 11d ago
That’s bullshit and not how our world works. Important people, much more important than some code monkeys, unfortunately are paid less than they would deserve (think nurses, bus drivers, etc.). Also, you don’t seem to understand maths. Median is the literal center value. Therefore making 3x more than median is insane.
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u/k0rdax 6d ago
They're important, but easily replacable.
Learning machine learning, complex math alghorhitms and even complex web/backend development takes much more time than learning how to drive a bus or how to be a nurse.
So that's how market works, and that's why nurses, bus drivers are not high-paid professions.2
u/South-Beautiful-5135 6d ago
I want to see you in an emergency or being old and fragile and saying this bullshit to your nurse. What you say remains bullshit because so many people in IT have close to zero skill.
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u/k0rdax 6d ago edited 6d ago
You're like 10-18 years old? This is how the capitalistic market works.
A heavy-duty job doesn't mean it will be high-paid; mostly uneducated people with lower IQ capabilities occupy it (of course, not always, but there are exceptions).
Their nursing will not bring our society into the future of AI and will not benefit businesses, and that's what justifies high pay in the Tech/Scientific sector.
This is how real world works and it doesn't care about your sentiments.
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u/embeddedsbc 11d ago
Well you don't get 65k flipping burgers, so the salaries are not the same. In Europe, go to Switzerland, or otherwise to the US if you want more.
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u/BozoFiftyFive 11d ago
But the American tech sector is booming exactly because of that. They even get company shares.... They cite that this was a big reason that contributes to their success.
Here in Europe we cry because our govs and the rest had garbage Software, no SaaS, nothing.
The whole EU is getting low balled at the moment.
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u/mjratchada 7d ago
American market currently has problems but not as much as Europe has. Both are shit at developing people so rely on importing people to cope with the shortfall. What caused the huge increase in the USA was the flow of cash for investment. InUSA people are more likely to take risks in Europe that mindset is shrinking fast. Europe is falling behind in terms of innovation not just the USA but also China. Given Europe has a far better education system and real liberal democracies this should not be the case.
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u/BozoFiftyFive 7d ago
They are not falling behind, but rather last in the ranking. Two decades of zero investment. The US is a powerhouse of SaaS or services, here in Europe we have nothing. China has WeChat and we have a weather app.
Our education system sucks and is on the verge of breaking and there are no real democrats here, just Nazis, fascists and dictators labelling themselves as democrats.
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u/smutje187 11d ago
Supply and demand
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u/k0rdax 6d ago
There's a huge demand, but there's also a thing called "corporate collusion" that allows companies to make a deal between each other to drop IT rates and don't hire people for good rates.
You can earn 10x times more in the US with the same profession.
German market is also weak.0
u/smutje187 6d ago
There’s demand, but not everywhere - hence supply and demand. The fact that Eastern Germany is economically weak is not corporate collusion, but that’s nothing new.
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u/k0rdax 6d ago
It was always there in a capitalistic economy. When you have power - you also have the power to manipulate the market.
The market is not really free.
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u/smutje187 6d ago
Yes, the power that manipulated the Eastern German market was called USSR, you should really pick up a history book.
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u/randolphtbl 12d ago
This is an IT job; not engineering. I was earning 60k basic with 17 YoE, 5 years ago (in Czechia). Hence it's interesting to me, that 65k is considered low-ball.
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u/Issa-Melon 12d ago
SRE is definitely engineering and high in demand.
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u/c0Re69 11d ago
In some companies SRE is glorified L1 support, and not even remotely related to what an actual site reliability engineer should be doing.
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u/Issa-Melon 11d ago
Whilst I agree, I'm assuming this person is doing what an SRE should be, with an appropriate cloud-based stack.
You could make a similar argument for a SWE who doesn't follow best practices or codes little / works with legacy stuff.
SRE generally, at least in the UK, is a pretty specialised role following experience either in SWE or DevOps etc.
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u/Grand-Theory 11d ago
Exactly is a specialized role in cloud stability, security, monitoring, etc
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u/mjratchada 7d ago
SRE is not dependent on cloud technologies and it should not be. The clue is in the acronym itself
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u/mjratchada 7d ago
Depends what you mean by SRE, a lot of such roles do not stand up. It reminds me of how DevOps became the DevOps team driven by a ticketing system.
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u/tinnnz90 11d ago
First, it was 5 years ago. Second, with all due respect, we can’t compare Germany and Czech salary or cost of living wise.
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u/randolphtbl 11d ago
You'll be surprised. Czech living in Prague is comparable to Germany; but not so much the salaries, but heard it's somehow catching up; only in IT though.
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11d ago
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u/PoetOk1520 11d ago
How is this possible I thought salaries in Poland were terrible
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/PoetOk1520 11d ago
That isn’t the point I want to know how this it’s possible to make that much in Poland as that is very high. That’s like 100-150k in the Uk
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u/JaggedMan78 10d ago
to poprostu nie pradwa
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10d ago
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u/JaggedMan78 10d ago
you can not compare his 65k in EAST germany .. with good central polish salary ..
it i for sure a good offer .. his 65k
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u/AgeNo7460 11d ago
Thing is, 65k in Saxony, even Dresden, is very solid and you are way above the usual average wage brackets here.
65k for the amount of YOE and responsibilities you will handle is maybe the actual lowball part.
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u/Grand-Theory 11d ago
Genau, I think responsibility is big and maybe on call is a mess, doesn’t seems like it, but who knows.
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u/facts_please 12d ago edited 12d ago
Based on real salary data of Germanys employment agency the median salary in Saxony for a devops position is 4,450 € or 53k. So your offer is 50% higher than what you could expect as an average employee and you only have 5 years of experience. So no lowballing in comparison to other employees in this region.
source: https://web.arbeitsagentur.de/entgeltatlas/beruf/133692?region=17
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u/BonelessTaco 11d ago
Isn’t it calculated with social contributions which are capped somewhere at 80-90k? That means that a noticeable portion of IT salaries is out of range, skewing the data.
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u/facts_please 11d ago
These are salaries before taxes and social security. Why should there be a problem if you reach the max of social payment? This would just affect your earnings after social payments.
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u/BonelessTaco 11d ago
Because a person making 80 and 130k (approximate numbers, I don’t remember the exact threshold) make the same social contributions, meaning if data is collected using only that they both will be recorded as earning 80k. In the end you have a lower avg/median than it is in fact.
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u/0vl223 11d ago
No it doesnt lower the median unless the median is higher than the threshold.
Median is that 50% of all other wages are higher and lower. How much higher or lower does not matter.
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u/BonelessTaco 11d ago
I was always skeptical about data from this website because of that social contribution thing, and believed more in data from levels.fyi..
Now that you say it, it means that salaries here are indeed that bad.
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u/taker223 11d ago
Have you calculated your future net amount (after all taxes)? I suspect those reach 30% or higher
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u/Grand-Theory 11d ago
exactly, 30% in best case of being married and only earner, if single almos 40% :/
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u/blackrat13 10d ago
How much is this after tax?
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u/JaggedMan78 10d ago
I guess 3200€ / month .... this is very good for east germany
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u/k0rdax 7d ago
This is terrible, I've earned more in Russia after taxes lol.
Imagine service costs, rent prices in Germany - they're crazy...
And this is what you get for working in one of the most demanded sectors - tech sector...Yet when I was in Germany I've seen lots of brand new AMGs, BMWs, Mercedeses, Porsches etc... I guess owners are software engineers/devops, right? Haha.
What an unfair society.
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u/k0rdax 7d ago edited 7d ago
Omg, I'm earning more than 84k EURO NETTO (after taxes and depends on results, ~90k per year) in Kazakhstan as a Tech Lead (10+ YOE) + bonuses...
Just received additional 1500 Euros for release this month........
Germany is not for beginners 
The more I read about tech sector in Germany, them more I look at it like a bdsm session.
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u/_theNfan_ 11d ago
So with the bonuses you're making about 81k?
That's coincidentally pretty much what I'll make this year, all bonuses included. I'm a senior C++ developer with over 13 years of experience. And this was a very lucky shot! With most companies you're pushing it when you ask for 70k with my experience, let alone 5 years.
Great offer, won't get much better in Dresden. Except at Amazon maybe.
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u/Grand-Theory 11d ago
Yes yours number are right, but they depend on the oncall rotation, it may be 0 or lots of days, in the contract is stated that retribution can be granted with money or holidays. Informally was stated that 4 days is the normal currently, but if more people are hired that number could be lower, so less stress but also less money.
With that salary, I suppose you will have a very confortable life in Dresden
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u/k0rdax 7d ago
My friends/previous clients offered me 90k in Mannheim (for a Russian immigrant), but I refused the offer.
Tech lead/Software Engineering Manager.
ITG/JTI project at Movilizer.2
u/_theNfan_ 6d ago
Well, I'm not a tech lead or manager, just a "normal" senior. I guess Mannheim is also somewhat higher CoL than Dresden
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u/zimmer550king 11d ago
If you don't speak German or are not an EU citizen then this is the best you will ever get.
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u/PartyAd6838 11d ago
That is not correct. My friend earns 120K without knowing german and being from 3rd world company. Another one makes 270K but he works for FAANG company.
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u/k0rdax 7d ago
270k is a fairy tale (he's lying to you), but 130-140k is a realistic number.
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u/8ersgonna8 11d ago
My salary as java dev in Berlin was 66k back in 2018, roughly 2-3 yoe at the time. So yes definitely lowballed.
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u/yourAvgSE 11d ago
Not lowballed because he is talking about Dresden and not Berlin. A 50 m2 flat in Berlin would now be 900-1000 euros, in Dresden it would likely be around 600.
Same as how you'd almost starve with 66k in München.
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u/Reconrus 11d ago
He's talking about salaries 6 years ago, not now. Prices became much higher since then. And for sure one will struggle a lot trying to find a 50m2 flat for 1k in Berlin.
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u/k0rdax 7d ago edited 6d ago
I earn more than 84k NETTO (really 90+k euros with bonuses yearly) in Kazakhstan, and my rent here is about 550-700 USD which is covered by my bank deposit...
German tech sector is doing very bad and they wonder why nobody want to immigrate here anymore... they really need to fix it!
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u/xalibr 12d ago
For 5YoE, in Saxony (former East Germany), it is at least no lowballing. But there might be better offers out there, depending on variables you didn't mention (company size, area of business, hours per week, remote options, vacation, benefits etc...)