I've been here for a decade, and sadly I feel the issue is upward mobility for skilled workers. Unless you're working for an intl company, with ex-pats in positions of leadership, your chances of "getting ahead" are going to be limited, especially when you're competing against natives.

The reason is sadly, the culture is very reserved and cautious, so as an "outsider" it's going to take A LONG time before you can be trusted in a senior/leadership position (no matter how good your German language skills are).

The good part, from my experience the people here are great, friendly, and yeh it takes time to get to know them but it pays off in the long run. But professionally... it's complicated.

So while people come here, work and stay for a few years, they're going to leave when they realise that despite their best efforts, they need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).

And this sadly affects applications for jobs (a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK), apply for apartments (which country is your last name from... automatic rejection), just to mention a few key cases that really affect immigration.

i've lived+worked in 4 different countries on 3 continents and i think you always have to expect to adjust to the culture, it's not going to change for you, nor should it. But if you want to progress professionally (and Germany NEEDS tech-imports, the tech culture here is a disaster, it's embarrassing) you're going to have to promote these people into high positions, not just view them as "cheaper labour".

I migrated to Germany 10+ years ago and I'm still here. Based on my limited experience, there are two big issues.

First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on. If you're a fresh immigrant who cannot find a job in an economic crisis (aka "most of them") you may very well wonder why staying here alone when you could be just as unemployed near your family.

Second: I won't say that Germany is xenophobic (not even all AfD voters) but I will say it's unfriendly. Work example: I've worked in multiple places in German without language issues, and yet many jobs automatically disqualify me because they ask for "minimum C2", a rank I don't have and one that many native Germans wouldn't achieve either. Add less chances to make a social circle, inflexibility, not great weather, and a government that's constantly calling you lazy and entitled, and that's how you get depressed.

The sad part is, Germany has all the pieces to be a great place to live that, for some reason, has decided to dismantle them all one by one.

I lived there for around 6 months like 15 years ago so perhaps it's changed a lot since then.

But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.

I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.

It didn't seem like an especially friendly place and there were so many rules about everything too, like just being able to take the rubbish or recycling out you had specific days and times.

I think there is also a chicken-egg problem in almost every country that doesn't use English as official language:

If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study --> to live there you need a job --> back to start

Different counties have different tolerances regarding how quick you pick up the local language. For Germany and France this tolerance is almost 0, for Netherlands it's much higher.

German discrimination and racism towards migrant workers and visible minorities is world class.

And with Alternative für Deutschland / AfD rising rapidly, this is only going to get much, much worse.

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/70478/study-finds-racis...

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/germany-...

As an outsider, but hailing from Germany's eastern neighbor and one of the largest sources of immigrants:

Overall sentiment is that the juice ain't worth the squeeze any more.

Back when my country became a full member of Schengen(2008) the ratio of GDP per capita between Germany and us was around 3.3x - salaries were roughly proportionally higher, so just about any job was worth moving there and potentially going through the hoops required to establish a permanent residence.

Earlier, especially throughout the 90s that ratio didn't go below 5, so a sizeable number of people attempted to move to Germany by any means possible.

Currently it hovers at around 2.1x and most of the discrepancy in salaries is focused on the trades.

A specialist from Poland typically doesn't have access to higher tier salaries, so they don't really enjoy a different quality of life than at home, so they have no reason to move.

Why would anyone wanna go to a country that pays them low abuses them and they end up alone with no friends because this is Germany.

I like Germany, studied German a bit in college, etc but when my family and I decided to move somewhere that suited us because we could work from anywhere Germany really failed to impress. We ended up in the Netherlands which offers a a lot of the perks people associate with Germany (perhaps wrongly, good trains were one of the things we wanted) without as many of the downsides.

As someone who moved from the U.S to Germany and has been here for ~15 months, I figured I would drop a few comments while I'm running a NixOS rebuild.

Let me start with the wonderful things: Public transportation is nice, at least compared to the U.S. I like the shared sense of responsibility that Germans have with things like recycling. The directness is quite nice, in the U.S I often had to question if someone was being genuine or not, and that is not really a problem here. If you're into various hobbies, clubs, etc., Germany has really incredible communities and clubs for so many things, and they're very organized about this, it's quite nice. The nature is great, and I've really enjoyed exploring different areas.

As for the negatives, it's clear in Germany that you're looking at buying into their system, for life so to speak. You don't find yourself getting equity, trading stocks, buying a home, etc. You generally are expected to work, keep your head down, and hopefully acquire an apartment where the rent won't increase while you support the social system (for the record, I am more than okay with paying my share, but I was shocked at the difference in take home pay, and particularly how it feels compared to the U.S). Buying a home is likely not going to be in the cards for most, and there is so much paperwork, painful and expensive driving courses, and strange decisions as well with starting your own business. I have for instance a few projects where I could be taking revenue, but I specifically am not as it would make my visa situation more complicated, and am instead waiting for a year or two.

Germany is really not a convenience culture, I consistently find myself exhausted. This might sound stupid, but in the U.S, I can simply hop in a car and grab a reasonably healthy Chipotle bowl or similar, get enough protein and vegetables, etc. In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.

Additionally, the language is brutal, it's hard to explain just how exhausting it is to learn while you're working full time. I have probably spent ~600 hours practicing yet I am still only about an A2 speaking level, with my understanding generally being a bit higher.

All in all, I'm happy I made the switch, it's been incredibly rewarding, but it truly is exhausting. I can see how this would add up, and I often think about how easy my life might be in the United States, and I miss this easy, casual life that's been replaced for something that really expects and demands so much from me, every single day and interaction.

My take: Nothing is funny in Germany? :)