Half of Germany's Top Earners Want Out

🫣 Sometimes I’ll overshare and/or rant a bit.

You may have noticed The Berlin Life looks a little different lately. I’ve been giving the whole site a facelift, and if you want to know how this all started (and who’s behind it), the new about page is where to go.

Last edition, I admitted that for the first time in 15 years here, I caught myself wondering whether I should go home. Turns out I'm nowhere near alone. Still no answer from me, but if you've been wondering the same thing, you're in very good company.

More on that below.

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📊 Results of our weekly polls.

⁉️ Our last poll asked: Do these reforms change how you feel about Germany?

A total of 116 people voted, and the proposed reforms have clearly struck a nerve. While 47% said it’s too early to judge, 41% said they’re already rethinking how they feel about Germany. Only 10% said the proposals haven’t changed their view.

The coalition’s plans include first-day sick notes, scrapping telephone sick notes, and extending some fixed-term contracts from two to four years. None of these measures are law yet, and all still require parliamentary approval. Even so, the results show that proposed policy changes alone can shape how people feel about their future here.

The irony is that while its top earners eye the exit, Germany desperately needs skilled workers, yet bureaucracy, language barriers, and the housing market keep pushing the internationals it recruits back out. Over 288,000 more people left Germany than arrived from abroad within a year, the biggest net loss since 2017.

If you've been wondering whether to stay, you're not alone.

🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏽 Connect with others: Join our chat on Substack.

🇩🇪 5 German companies hiring right now.

This week, we're featuring 5 German companies with a mission beyond profit:

1. everdrop (Waste-free home cleaning products)
   Munich & Aachen | 13 jobs
   Senior designer, junior influencer marketing manager, conversion strategy & offer psychology manager.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid

2. Klim (Regenerative farming platform)
   Berlin | 13 jobs
   Sr farm economics specialist, head of scientific modelling, certification specialist.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid

3. nebenan.de (Social network for neighbourhoods)
   Berlin | 3 jobs
   Sales manager, senior sales manager, finance operations specialist.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid

4. Tomorrow (Sustainable banking app for climate impact)
   Hamburg & remote | 1 job
   Senior IOS engineer.
   🇬🇧 | Hybrid

5. Too Good to Go (App selling unsold restaurant food)
   Berlin | 8 jobs
   Logistics manager, paid social team lead, key accounts specialist.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid

👋🏼 That’s not all: See our weekly-updated database of 400+ Berlin companies hiring right now.

Berlin Companies Hiring

🤑 German startups that recently raised new funding.

1. alqem (AI materials discovery platform) - €8 M
   Munich & remote | 3 jobs
   Magnet scientist, materials scientist, computational material scientist.
   🇬🇧 | Likely onsite for lab work.

2. Andercore (Industrial materials supply platform) - €30 M
   Berlin mainly, plus some other German cities | 41 jobs
   Growth associate, chief of staff - strategy & AI enablement, people operations manager.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid/onsite mix.

3. ARC Intelligence (Group financial reporting platform) - €4 M
   Berlin | 5 jobs
   Engineering intern, full-stack engineer, head of GTM.
   🇬🇧, 🇩🇪 a + | Hybrid

4. auxilius.ai (AI continuous auditing platform) - €1.3 M
   Munich | 2 jobs
   Founding product manager, application architect.
   🇬🇧 | Hybrid

5. Birdsview (Agentic e-commerce CRM) - €2.5 M
   Düsseldorf | 1 job
   Product engineer.
   🇬🇧 | Remote

6. FENKA Robotics (Service robot integrator) - €3 M
   Berlin & remote | 4 jobs
   Account manager, sales manager, robotic services technician.
   🇩🇪 | Hybrid

7. Finto (AI agents for accounting) - $3.4 M
   Munich | 7 jobs
   Founder’s associate, solution engineer, tech lead.
   🇬🇧 | Onsite

8. Fuchs & Eule (Building energy renovation consultancy) - €10 M
   Berlin | 7 jobs
   Startup intern, energy consultant, key account manager.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid

9. Lissi (EU identity wallet API) - €3.5 M
   Frankfurt, Berlin, & remote | 5 jobs
   Product manager, account executive, technical pre-sales specialist.
   🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Hybrid

10. Proxima Fusion (Stellarator fusion power developer) - €411 M
    Munich | 29 jobs
    AI solutions engineer, computational engineer, lead recruiter.
    🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Onsite

11. QuantumDiamonds (Diamond-sensor chip inspection tool) - €91 M
    Munich & remote | 8 jobs
    Hardware engineering intern, head of finance, head of operations.
    🇬🇧, 🇩🇪 a + | Onsite

12. Skillcourt (Motion-tracking athletic training system) - €1.7 M
    Schweinfurt | 1 job
    Full-stack developer.
    🇩🇪 & 🇬🇧

13. Stenon (Handheld soil analysis device) - €18 M
    Potsdam | 1 job
    Embedded software engineer.
    🇬🇧

14. Vytal (Reusable tracked packaging system) - Undisclosed
    Cologne, Berlin, & remote | 2 jobs
    Head of finance, senior strategic sourcing manager.
    🇩🇪 & 🇬🇧

What last week's funding tells us:

1. Munich quietly took the week. Five of these fourteen are Munich-based, including both giants (Proxima Fusion at €411 M, QuantumDiamonds at €91 M) which account for 84% of the money. Berlin still wins on listings, but deep-tech capital has moved south.

2. Science degrees are back on the job board. Magnet scientist, computational materials scientist, hardware engineer. Not the usual growth-and-product mix, and these labs hire in English because the talent pool is global. Kind week if you have a physics or materials background.

3. The smaller the round, the more English you’ll hear. Every English-only company here raised under €10 M, while the German-required ones sell to German customers. Language requirements track who the customer is, not how international the office feels.

Note: I’m a little behind on updating my startup funding page. Updates for the week of June 12 will be up on my site tomorrow. Click the button below. ⬇️

💸 Don’t skip the list: See the 309 startups tracked this year with zero paywalls on one single page. Bookmark it and check back weekly.

Funded German Startups

🙌 Weekly career tips to keep you sane in Germany.

One of the most common gaps I see when reviewing CVs: no professional title at the top. Just a name, contact details, and straight into the work history. That’s a missed opportunity, because recruiters form a mental box for you within the first three seconds, and a headline title like “Senior Marketing Manager” or “Enterprise Delivery Leader” tells them exactly which box you belong in. It also helps you surface in the keyword searches recruiters run on LinkedIn and in their HR systems.

The formula is simple. Sum up who you are professionally in three to six words, place it right under your name, and make sure everything below supports it. Your summary and experience are the evidence, the title is the claim. And resist the urge to cram in every specialty you have. A title trying to say three things says nothing.

Most importantly, pick a title you can stand behind with confidence. If it feels like a costume, it will read like one in the interview too. Choose the version of your professional self that’s both true and aimed at where you want to go next.

Bonus article: The career ladder's first rung is moving, and practical AI skills now matter more than a degree.

If you want help improving your CV or job applications for the German market, I’ve got you. 👉🏼 Learn more or book a session here.

🥨 Things to make life in Deutschland (a little bit) better.

• Hot tip: The Rundfunkbeitrag (the so-called “TV tax”) covers your whole household, so if you and your flatmates each pay €18.36, someone is overpaying.

• Recommended newsletters: 20% Berlin & Smart Living in Germany.

• Weekly deals: I use the American Express Green Card as my everyday card and earn points on everything from REWE to Zalando. Sign up through my link and get 10,000 bonus points after spending €2,000 in your first six months.

🔊 Guides to help you settle in Germany.

Three guides for wherever you are in your Germany journey:

Restart your Deutsch with the right pick from German-language schools in Berlin, aim your job search at the fastest-growing jobs in Germany, and then read the guide I'm proudest of, the cost of living in Berlin.

I keep it brutally honest, with real numbers instead of the outdated "cheap Berlin" fantasy, because deciding your future here deserves the truth and not a sales pitch.

ℹ️ More where that came from:

• 60+ guides on living and working in Germany.

• We also have a podcast. See our past episodes.

🎟️ A weekly event round-up.

This week is proof that the best of Berlin summer happens on a picnic blanket:

1. Jul 23: Kariwurst Berlin at Markthalle Pfefferberg is a South Indian currywurst pop-up with ghee roast sauce, Kerala pickle, and vegan options. Limited portions daily. €9.90.

2. Jul 23: Silent Book Club at Tempelhofer Feld is an outdoor reading session on the grass, an hour of quiet reading, then book chat and picnicking. Free.

3. Jul 24: Charades meets Pictionary in Tiergarten is a playful evening of team games on picnic blankets, zero talent required. Bring vegan snacks and a blanket. Free.

💖 Something new is brewing: a women and FLINTA professional network with dinners, meetups, and workshops on the way. The list gets first dibs on every event. Add your name.

📅 Subscribe to our calendar to receive event alerts from The Berlin Life as they happen.

🗞️ The inside scoop on what’s happening in Germany.

• Before you buy that portable AC unit, read whether your landlord gets a say, and take heart that calls for legal heat protection for tenants are getting louder.

• Deutsche Bahn in one story, a train to Sylt had no toilet paper, so an employee made an unscheduled supermarket run and was crowned employee of the month.

• More room to breathe on the tram, Berlin has launched its longest ever, a full 50 metres.

• Validation has arrived, The Economist officially wants to know why Berlin's airport is still completely hopeless.

• The Nordics won ranking season, Copenhagen kept its most liveable city crown and Sweden topped quality of life, Germany nowhere near either.

• Merz has a plan for the AfD's rise, win their voters back rather than fight them, and Politico's deeper look asks whether the reformer act can work before it's too late.

• Berlin's housing fights are heating up, with new cost estimates for building on Tempelhofer Feld and an unprecedented expropriation showdown.

• The housing math is grim, Germany’s social housing stock has shrunk by half, so now there’s a push to turn empty office buildings into homes.

• One era ends, 1000s begin, Uber is buying Delivery Hero for €12.7 billion, while Germany just logged a record 3,000 new startup foundings in six months.

• Meanwhile in German tech, an ex-n8n founder wants to be the MrBeast of tech nerds and the Lidl billionaire is building a German answer to Big Tech, and yes, the women in this paragraph are still loading.

• Sweating through your un-airconditioned Altbau has a price tag, June's heatwave cost the German economy billions, and Merz is under fire for the lack of a heat plan.

• If you've ever wondered how workers in Germany actually push back, over half a million of them went on strike last year, mostly for better pay, and the next fight is heatwaves, with EU unions demanding the right to stop working when temperatures pass 32.5 degrees.

• Germany's IT job market just got tighter, with open roles down 22% and IT unemployment climbing from 3.7% to 4.5%.

• Before you panic about headlines, DW digs into whether German firms are really shifting production abroad, and what it means for your job security.

• Mark your calendars for 2029, that's when the EU's population is expected to peak before a long decline, and it's exactly why Europe needs workers like us.

• If you're ever between jobs here, this helps, ALG I claims are going "digital first", with video Jobcenter sessions and way less paper post.

• Plan your Berlin summer weekend and pick your swimming spot from the city's best lakes, then later hit up Berlin's newest restaurant openings.

• Two free Berlin games worth your time: Ubahndoku, a daily Wordle-style puzzle for U-Bahn nerds, and a new Babylon Berlin mystery game landing with the show's final season this September.

• 2 ends of the German food spectrum, Labskaus, the divisive pink sailor's dish you have to see to believe, and Gurkensalat, the creamy cucumber salad you need to make this summer.

📩 What landed with readers last week.

• Last edition: Read last week’s blast, where we reviewed the proposed new labour reforms, profiled AI companies hiring, doled out tips on CV skills, and highlighted 11 new openings in Berlin.

• Most read: The top 3 most read links were these photos of a very Berlin flat, news about the Spreepark reopening, and my roundup of 400+ companies hiring in Berlin right now.

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