Still on DSL in 2025. Seriously, Germany?
CV quantifiers. A German job interview cheat sheet. An AfD ban? Working until you're 70. Being nice at work. Germany's dinosaur internet situation. High rents are keeping foreign talent away.
Personal News & Musings
🫣 Sometimes, I’ll overshare and/or rant a bit.
I dropped a new podcast episode over the weekend. Think your CV’s weak without stats? This episode will change your mind.
Follow me: Threads / Instagram / Bluesky / LinkedIn
Companies Hiring Right Now
🇩🇪 Companies in Germany that are hiring right now.
Advantest - Various German locations | Jobs (39 openings)
Bauer Media Group - Various German locations | Jobs (67 openings)
Greenbone - Remote & Osnabrück | Jobs (10 openings)
Nuvalore - Leimen | Jobs (2 openings)
Zimmer Biomet - Remote & Various German locations | Jobs (20 openings)
📢 Job of the Week: Project Controller @ Deutsche Welle
Recently Funded Startups
🤑 German startups that recently raised new funding may also have vacancies.
✨ TL;DR - 9 startups funded across 4 German cities. Hy2gen came out on top, nabbing €47 M, with Pliant not far behind with €40 M.
ARX Robotics - €31 M | Munich | Jobs
eeden - €18 M | Münster | Jobs
DXI - Undisclosed | Munich | No jobs atm, but bookmark their website.
Hy2gen - €47 M | Wiesbaden | Jobs
Kombuchery - Undisclosed | Berlin | No jobs atm, but bookmark their website.
Particula - $5.5 M | Munich | Jobs
Pliant - $40 M | Berlin | Jobs
Solda.AI - €3.5 M | Berlin | No jobs atm, but bookmark their website.
ubiMaster - €7 M | Munich | Jobs
Job Search Tip
🙌 A weekly tip to help you crack that job search.
👩💼 Have you ever wondered how to answer the "Tell me about yourself" question in a German job interview? We got you covered with our cheat sheet that provides an easy-to-follow structure and some practical tips.
ℹ️ You can also read our detailed career guide.
⭐ If you’re job hunting in Germany, I can help improve your CV and cover letter, and even prep you for interviews. See our career coaching services.
Polling Vibes
📊 Our last poll asked: Would you work extra hours for tax breaks?
The results are in, and our community says … maybe?! 37% want more info, 32% say “heck yes,” and 31% don’t want to even think about it at all.
Should the AfD be banned in Germany? The party has finally been classified as a right-wing extremist party. Yet, they recently polled as the most popular party in the country (for the first time ever.) Half of Germany even thinks the AfD should be banned.
👉 What do you think?
Events
🍹 Events from The Berlin Life. And sometimes, events from others.
Our next professional women’s networking event is on May 15, an after-works drink event at a rooftop bar in West Berlin. Come out to network, meet new people, and sip delicious cocktails while enjoying one of the best views in the city.
Looking for more event inspiration? The Berliner rounded up Berlin’s best events in May.
📅 Subscribe to our calendar to be in the know for future events.
Germany Life Hacks
💪Things to make your life in Deutschland a little bit better.
Bookshelf pick: Broken Republik (Bloomsbury, English) and Totally Kaputt? (Piper Verlag, Deutsch) — A new book by Bloomberg News journalists Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes dives into Germany’s current identity crisis, shaped by political dysfunction, economic anxiety, and the rise of the far right. It shows how immigrants and newcomers may hold the key to building a more inclusive and future-facing Germany. 📚 Read it now.
Subscribe to Berlin newsletters: 20% Berlin.
💵 Save money with our partners: Order takeout, flowers, and groceries via Uber Eats. Use promo code eats-cherylh421 to get €10 off your first two orders.
Community News
🤝 News from our community.
📩 Our Last Newsletter
ICYMI: Last week’s newsletter, 10 Startups in Germany Just Raised Millions - and They're Hiring.
Last week’s most popular read: Petition calls for dedicated FLINTA-only carriages in BVG vehicles.
Browse our archives for past editions.
🫶 Featured Germany Guides
I just did a BIG update to our timeliness piece, Companies In Berlin Hiring Right Now.
📖 Read our 50+ free life and career guides.
Food For Thought
💡 Articles about tech, the world of work, & other random things.
🧑💼 The World of Work
Could you (or would you want to) work until you’re 70?
Meta let her go, but AI picked her up. How one worker turned job loss into something positive.
Niceness at work: underrated superpower or career-limiting move? It depends …
The future feels fragile when you're young, working hard, and still getting left behind.
🤖 All Things Tech
Microsoft says up to 30% of its code is now written by AI, and that number’s only going up.
Elon Musk’s “free speech” crusade is tanking X in Europe, and users are leaving.
Look out, Duo. Google just dropped AI tools that tailor language lessons to you.
About time! WhatsApp added voice and video call buttons to its web client.
🪄 Random
Viktor Frankl’s reminder: even in darkness, we can say yes to life. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s meaningful.
Turns out avoiding phone calls might say more about your personality than you think.
Even chimps enjoy a drink now and then — researchers in Uganda just spotted them boozing in the wild.
News in Germany
🗞️ All of the news in Germany.
ℹ️ General
Big changes are coming this month in DE, including a special public holiday for Berlin, fines for forcing open doors on the U-Bahn, and more.
See our list of public holidays in Berlin.
Electronic patient records (EPAs) are now a thing. An English explainer. Many foreigners fear their medical history being used against them, so here’s how you can opt out (I know I did).
While our neighbors go full fiber, Germany’s still buffering on DSL.
Did you find yourself without water last week? I was among them. A water pipe burst, leaving NE Berlin without H2O for some hours.
If you tried to access berlin.de last week, the site was down after a DDoS attack.
📈 Politics & Economy
The CDU named their picks for major positions in the new government, and ummm … research them and then tell me if you’re worried.
The far-right video in Sylt made headlines. The dropped charges? Not so much.
Driving schools in Germany face rising costs as EVs become the new standard, and learners may foot the bill.
The new government says it plans to make driver’s licenses less expensive, among other things. They also plan to bring back the 50 KM/hour speed limit in Berlin.
We saw the lights go out in Spain and Portugal this week, and even though we don’t yet know the cause, it’s no surprise that Germany’s infrastructure is an easy target for cyber criminals.
Germany has 36 billion one-cent and two-cent coins in circulation. Should we get rid of them?
🧑🏼🏭 Immigration & Labour Market
Companies are desperate to hire, but high rents in major German cities turn foreign talent away before they even unpack.
A deep discussion about how hard it is to deal with the Foreigner’s Office in Berlin, with preferential treatment for some nationalities.
A pessimistic outlook on German labour market trends for 2025.
Turns out weekends aren’t sacred in Germany, with almost 25% of the workforce clocking in.
Aligns 100% with my recent podcast about German workplace myths.
💃🏻 Fun, Interesting, and/or Useful
Visit Berlin shared the top 11 bookshops in the Hauptstadt.
The NYT suggests this list of things to do in Berlin in 36 hours.
Who needs a plane when the Deutschland Ticket gets you decent day trips from Berlin?
Europe’s sleeper trains are having a moment too — and a few of them depart from Berlin.
You can also travel to Leipzig and sample beef roulade at one of the most famous restaurants out there.
🫶 Do you know someone looking for work in Germany? Share our newsletter.