did your company ask you to return to the office?
Issue #87 (05 Feb) – 20 marketing and comms jobs; Salary survey returns; Coffee with Manoj; Denkmal karte for Berlin; housing crises are permanent; CO2 and lüften.
Programming note: I’ll be doing the anonymous salary survey again. Please approach me if you’d like to help and join the team with PR/growth support or Python repo refactoring. It’s a great service to the community.
Katia is urgently looking for an apartment in Berlin. If you have any leads, please e-mail her.
🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen & Tech Events
🎪 Events:
Data and AI Night: AI-driven Products | Feb, 7.2 at 18.30 | innoQ
Design and Animation (2D/3D) Meetup | Tue, 13.2 at 19.00 | Atopia Kaffeehaus
Unicorns in Tech Afterwork – FLINTA* Edition | Thu, 22.2 at 18.00 | Salina Bar Mitte
😎 Cool stuff:
H2Think is a non-profit dedicated to advancing technology through affordable, collaborative ventures, leveraging public funding to reduce research costs. You can partner with them to shape the future with our pioneering projects in AI, machine learning, and acoustic innovation.
Freelancers can apply for KOMPASS, which aims to support full-time self-employed individuals in increasing the resilience of their business model.
(doing a project? Built something to show? you can get featured here)
🔍 Searching for roles/freelance gig:
Marvey: Hey, I’m Marvey. I am currently studying Computer Science at Humboldt. I want to deepen my QA Engineering skills, looking for software to give feedback on. I can probably beat you in Super Smash Bros.
Oguzcan will graduate with a master's in data analytics in about two months. He has two years of market research experience. He is looking for a full-time job in the same field.
Sergei: Hi, I am Sergei. I am an experienced Data Engineer / Data Scientist interested in bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds. I seek senior roles in energy, transportation, pharma, agriculture, or other real-world fields.
Olivia: Looking to spruce up your LinkedIn/website? Perhaps you're an aspiring actor or writer and need to look the part? Maybe your company portrait is even starting to feel slightly catfish-y? Let me take your headshot for you.
Pavel is a product designer looking for a role at an impact startup, edtech, health tech, or creative tools. Previously, he was an early designer at the online music studio Soundtrap (acq. by Spotify) and a documentary filmmaker at Otoxo.
🫣 Looking for a service/freelancer:
Need some for the Python script? A design? Something you always wanted but never found the time. SEO for your business? Whatever someone can solve for you fits here.
🫵🏻 You can get featured, too—submit on this link! It’s free for all categories.
👀 Handpicked twenty-something
📨 HR going the extra mile & readers submitted
🧞♂️ On rotation this week: Marketing and Comms
More positions (also outside rotation) in Handpicked online database.
🤩 Would you consider supporting handpicked?
I love working on Handpicked. It’s free and will forever remain free.
But if you find value in my work, I would love you to become a supporter. Not only will this help sustain it, but you will also invest in your growth and learning. Thank you for considering it. 🙏 It’s €5.00 per month or €30.00 per year.
Not even a good night out. Benefits for supporters will be extended in the future.
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Manoj Pandey
Manoj is an experienced builder of communities and the founder of Gezellig Sessions, a series of concerts in his living room (the next one is happening this Friday, so get your tickets on the link). Here is what he has prepared for you:
Wait But Why: Long-form blog by Tim Urban; you might have seen him at this TED talk around procrastination. Typical posts involve long-form discussions of various topics, including artificial intelligence, outer space, and procrastination, using a combination of prose and rough illustrations. All his articles are great, but one that can help many readers might be this one: How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You).
Kevin Kelly, founder of WIRED, writes beautifully about many topics. When he turned 70, he published a series of advice in a book. But if you're interested in the article, the internet has preserved it here: 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known. He also wrote the infamous piece called "1000 True Fans" where he says "To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You need only 1000."
Pudding is one of my favourite digital publications because of its visual journalism. They wrote a super cool data-backed article, "Is TikTok helping artists become commercially successful, or does the medium present a new opportunity worth pursuing?"
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
🤞 Remember the intro topic? I am looking to build a team around the anonymous salary survey. If you’d like to join or help, drop me a message. It’s mostly PR/growth & Python repo refactoring. Ideally, you are from Berlin because I’d like to meet you in person.
📍Berlin has a Denkmal karte where you can check which buildings close to you have a special protected status with links to descriptions to get lost and improve your German.
🏡 Housing crises are permanent. I learned it in this excellent 24-minute podcast from DLF. (🇩🇪) It’s like Groundhog Day. Apropo apartments, according to IW, rents in Berlin have increased by 9.2% in the last quarter (YoY), more than in Munich (7,3%) and Leipzig (7,8%). For buyers, the median asking price in Berlin has “fallen from 5,256 to currently 5,007 €/sqm,” since July 2022 (BZ, €, 🇩🇪)
🏢 Remote work (for large companies) is dying, and remote workers are the first in line for layoffs. I’ve been hearing about return-to-office mandates coming back in Berlin and Germany—at least for a couple of days per week. Here is a thesis from the US (Tweet), and since the US is ahead of Europe, we might be getting there soon (office five days per week). (🤫 By mandating RTO, companies also hope to speed up the natural attrition.)
🔻Related, commercial real-estate values dropped $1.2 trillion, according to a rich bloke. The owners have struggled to refinance loans as building values declined. For effect in Berlin, see Signa and KaDeWe, which was, as revealed now, a big black hole (🇩🇪), also supported by taxpayers. Signa's story will drag on for years in the city.
😅 The salaries of ZDF presenters have been publicly revealed. (🇩🇪) This is relevant because we all finance it with the licence fee (€18.36 monthly). I support public services, but these salaries do seem excessive. Wdyt, is Welke €1,18M funny?
🤖 Does it still make sense to be a software engineer, or are the best days over? The Pragmatic Engineer has a good partially paywalled article on the effect of cheap money. Similarly, many MBA graduates from top business schools are struggling (WSJ). It looks like a supply and demand topic.
🌬️I cannot believe I am writing this: I did my research and bought a CO2 sensor and an air purifier with the stupidest name ever (Airmega Mighty). I’ve been sleeping the best for years, and now I finally understand the German obsession with lüften:
Here’s a cool piece: Overchoice and How to Avoid it by Gurwinder. He offers five great philosophical razors to choose from, and I can’t pick my favourite, huehue.
r/berlin choice of the week is the obvious garbage crisis in the city. I think half of it is people’s fault just throwing their shit around as they please. On the other hand, my neighbour is policing our paper bin and once brought a couple of carboards back to my door because I didn’t rip them apart enough.
💬 Briefly:
😔 Bad news: Deutsche Bank plans for -3500 (in non-customer facing roles); Block (US-based fintech) close to 1000; Paypal -2500; Okta -400; Sanity Group (cannabis) -30%; Enlivar (fintech), Movinga (moving), Liefergrün (delivery), KaDeWe bankrupt; Personio laid off 100, but had 150 positions open, and of course, this could be problematic (🇩🇪, €)
January's unemployment rate was 6.1% in Germany and 9.7% in Berlin (+0.6%). Destatis also reported that the inflation fell to 2.9%, the lowest since June 2021 (it was 8.7% last year). In Berlin, it was 2.3%. (St.BB)
Activists of the Last Generation declared they will try new methods of protest in the coming months. I'm not sure if “Flat tyres for the Future” on SUVs in well-off parts of Berlin are also a part of it.
Bayer will pay $2.25B fine in the Glyphosate-related lawsuit in the US. Its $63B acquisition of Monsanto must be one of the deals of the century, but not for Bayer’s shareholders.
DeutschlandTicket will stay priced at €49 in 2024. (ntv) Tesla will offer a direct train line from Lichtenberg to their plant in Grünheide from April onwards.
Peter Thiel, a billionaire, venture capitalist and right-leaning political activist, invested in Enhanced Games. Think Olympics, but with doping allowed and encouraged. Sick.
Flix will expand to India (46 cities with 200 bus lines).
Delivery Hero sold its shares in Deliveroo for £82M.
Douglas, a perfume retailer, plans to IPO to pay down debt.
Octopus Energy, the British energy supplier with a presence in Germany, turned its first profit in 2023.
Volkswagen jumped on the AI train by founding “AI Lab”.
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
myo | Berlin | Communication platform for nursing homes | €8M Series A | Careers.
BlueLayer | Berlin | Software solutions for carbon project developers | $5.6M Seed | Careers.
akirolabs | Berlin | AI-powered SaaS for strategic procurement | $5M Seed | Careers.
WAY | Berlin | Smartphone and laptop acquisition for SMBs | €1.2M Pre-Seed | No careers.
Colipi | Hamburg | Converts CO2 and industrial waste into oil | €1.8M | Careers.
Rabot Charge | Hamburg | AI-based algorithm development for power purchasing | €17.5M Series A | Careers.
Planet A | Munich | Fermented oats and sunflower seeds for a patented cocoa alternative | $15.4M | Careers.
BOX ID | Munich | Supply Chain visibility platform for industrial logistics | €3.5M | Careers.
Wegatech | Munich | Renewable energy system solutions | €5M | Careers.
encentive | Neumünster | AI software for shifting industrial power consumption | €2.7M | Careers.
SEMRON | Dresden | AI chips for small devices | €7.3M Seed | No careers.
😅 Meanwhile
let’s celebrate the Internet, a place which made this possible
This is a footer slice of 📱 mobile addiction for you (NYE celebration in Paris, Reddit). It made me rethink my behaviour and moved something in me. Coming soon to the mobile next to you!
✌️ Handpicked essentials:
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
- Berlin Salary Trends Report 2023: How do you compare?
- You can follow Handpicked on LinkedIn.
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
If this e-mail didn’t get cut for you, smash that like button or leave a comment!
Hey @Igor, I would love to collaborate with the salary survey. I'm a web dev (and also living in Berlin). Let me know if I could help :)