Announcing Our New Podcast About Living & Working in Germany
Tune into our new podcast. Job search strategies in 2025, plus workplace trends. Meta & X alternatives. Startup funding in Germany is trending upwards. German election interference.
Personal News & Musings
🫣 Sometimes, I’ll overshare and/or rant a bit.
This was an exciting week for me! I kicked off a new podcast for The Berlin Life. You can listen here.
Note: As this was the first podcast episode, I sent out an email announcement. In the future, I’ll simply link to new episodes in the weekly newsletter. You can also subscribe to episode updates.
Community News
🤝 News from our community.
Our last poll asked: With Germany's economic growth forecast lowered for 2025, what's your job search strategy? The top two strategies for job seekers are focusing on international companies (37%) and upskilling in high-demand areas (32%).
Take part in this week’s poll. 👇
This week’s featured Berlin Life guides: A Moving To Berlin Guide – Move Here & Settle In Like A Local and How to Answer the Interview Question: “Tell Me About Yourself .”
ICYMI: Last week’s newsletter - The Bildungsgutshein: Beware of False Advertising. For past editions, browse our archives.
Event roundup: Some great local events are coming up.
The Berlin Life is hosting a community mixer on Wednesday (everyone is welcome). There’s already a waiting list, but as there will likely be last-minute cancellations, why don’t you get on the list anyway? Sign-up.
We’re also hosting our next women’s networking dinner event on Wed, Feb 19. This time, we’ll try delicious Turkish food in another gorgeous venue. Sign-up.
Women in Agile is hosting an event for job seekers: Crack the Code to Winning Interviews and Assembling Top Teams.
The Berlin Tech Workers Coalition has a string of events coming up.
Food For Thought
💡 Articles about tech, the world of work, & other random things.
Three workplace trends will dominate 2025, including the ongoing RTO battle, the DEI backlash, and AI taking our jobs.
We’ve passed the “great resignation” era and entered the “great stay” era.
Some of the best-paying and in-demand jobs don’t require degrees.
Not exactly the hottest take, but The Art of Finding Work recently talked about cover letters: Including a cover letter will give you a competitive advantage.
Certain people only begin to thrive when they get older - are you a late bloomer?
A sign to never work for the company: Airbnb's CEO advises managers to pick their “favorites”, hoping this action will motivate other employees to model their favorite’s behavior.
Machiavellian tendencies are something that anyone can be plagued with. Yet, women in countries with higher levels of gender equality display less Machiavellian behaviors, while men remain at the same levels.
Alternatives exist and/or are in the works if you want to step away from Meta and X:
Bluesky launched a custom feed for vertical videos.
Pixelfed is a new and decentralized alternative to Instagram.
Mark Cuban recently mulled buying Tiktok’s American business but may potentially fund a rival application modeled on BlueSky’s AT protocol.
In a bid to compete with TikTok, Tumblr now offers Tumblr TV.
In February, America plans to open a data center … on the moon.
Companies Hiring Right Now
🇩🇪 Companies in Germany that are hiring right now.
Blinkist (Berlin & remote, 3 jobs, EN required)
Digital Turbine (Berlin, 3 jobs, EN required)
Figma (Berlin, EN &/or DE required) - Their careers site is impossible to sort by location to determine the number of job openings.
Kittl (Berlin, 8 jobs, EN required)
sedApta (Giessen, 4 jobs, DE required)
Recently Funded Startups
🇩🇪 German startups that recently raised new funding may also have vacancies.
Alteva - €1.7 M | Cologne | Jobs (No openings atm)
Bees & Bears - €500 M | Berlin | Jobs (2 job openings)
Ecoplanet - €16 M | Munich | Jobs (15 openings)
ENAPI - €7.5 | Berlin | Jobs (2 openings)
Fabel - €1.3 M | Hamburg | Jobs (8 openings)
Green Fusion - €12 M | Berlin | Jobs (4 openings)
Ingarden - €1.2 M | Berlin | Jobs (2 openings)
Matchory - €6 M | Munich | Jobs (No openings atm)
Project Eaden - €15 M | Berlin | Jobs (2 openings)
Sereact - €25 M | Stuttgart | Jobs (40 openings)
ScrapBees - €4 M | Neuss | Jobs (3 openings)
Tapline - €20 M | Berlin | Jobs (4 openings)
ℹ️ Follow us on LinkedIn, where we share new job postings daily.
News in Germany
🗞️ All of the news in Germany.
General News
Germany's new electronic patient files (EPA) allow doctors to see your entire medical history. Consider opting out and contact your health insurance provider for further instructions.
The development is worrying some foreigners who fear doctors will use the information against them. Justified, as a CDU party member wants to create a registry of people with mental health issues.
There are also serious data security concerns, as it turns out that it’s easily hackable. This could incentivize far-right parties like the AfD to steal that information and target certain groups of German society.
Berlin’s BVG will be going on strike tomorrow. The Local advises how to get around Berlin without public transit (paywalled).
This is new! Germany’s population actually grew in 2024.
Flixtrain expanded services between Germany and Switzerland.
Southern German cities are likely going to impose a disposable packaging tax on businesses.
Politics
Elon Musk is EVERYWHERE these days, and Europeans are NOT impressed.
Telsa is losing clout in Europe due to his meddling in politics.
Activists projected an image of Musk doing a Nazi salute on Berlin’s Gigafactory. The activists are now under investigation.
A museum in Munich removed Elon’s portrait.
Last night, he joined an AfD party meeting remotely. A confirmation that his Nazi salute was intentional, he told the crowd Germans should no longer have to feel guilty about their Nazi past.
The EU is understandably getting pissed about American tech bros interfering in our politics. A big meeting is coming up on January 31, much of it centering around their overreach into Germany’s elections.
It’s not just the American tech bros, as an investigation has shown Russia is interfering in our elections too.
Foreigners were denied entrance at a club in Rostock for not being able to show evidence of German citizenship.
Almost 100,000 people gathered to protest the AfD in Berlin yesterday, with similar protests being held in other German cities.
More people than ever before will be voting in the upcoming election, mainly because many foreigners have become German citizens in the past year. There are more than 10 million of us who have no say unfortunately, about 11% of the population.
The CDU is melting its so-called firewall and said it will work with the AfD to pass migration reform. The CDU wants to scrap dual citizenship, among other things.
There is no way of stopping the AfD before the election or the rising popularity of the far-right at the moment. Beyond this election, Germany has a lot of work to do.
Economy
Germany’s central bank continues to push for relaxing the debt brake, one of the bold moves the future government has to make to turn the economy around.
Economic geeks can dive into a detailed report of the German economy.
A writer at The Local says challenging your high rents is a civic duty.
Immigration & Labor Market
Legendary German companies, Addidas and Puma are weighing job cuts.
When does your workday officially begin in Germany?
VIDEO: Mustika from Indonesia moved to Germany nine years ago. She now offers career coaching to other Indonesians moving to Germany for work.
Fun, Interesting, and/or Useful
A German man set the world record for living the most days … underwater.
VIDEO: Is Heidelberg really as “picture perfect” as it seems on Instagram?
Ways We Can Help You
😇 Useful stuff served up by the Berlin Life.
Get help with job application and interview preparation through our career coaching and review services.
Connect with fellow professionals in Germany through our LinkedIn Connect & Exchange list.
Read our 50+ free guides to living, working, and moving to Germany.
Recommended reading: 20% Berlin - Berlin news in English
Ask questions about living and working in Germany, and join our chat. 💬
❤️ Thanks for being part of our community. Support our work and buy us a beer.
Really excited to see you've started this! (It's Eleanor from The Germany Expat Podcast) I have a 'secret' account here where I occasionally rant about politics!