Salary Transparency

I’m of the firm opinion that workers should talk openly about their salaries. Taboos akin to “don’t talk about money” enable exploitation – if you don’t know what a good salary is, it’s hard to know whether you’re being paid fairly. While it’s not a substitute for strong unions and labor agreements, I think it’s the next best thing to create transparency by talking publicly about salaries.

That’s why I decided to start a table of my salaries here on my website, inspired by Xe Iaso, who has something similar on their website.

I’m still a student at university, so there’s not a whole lot of jobs here yet, and all of them are part-time. However, I still think this information can be useful, e.g. for other students working part-time. Especially the comparison between the hourly salary my university pays and what I’m currently getting paid in the industry is quite interesting.

Context: I hold a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and am currently in the last stretch of my master’s degree. For more information about my education, skills and experience, take a look at my work page.

Salary Data

Job Employer Start End Hours Salary How I Left
software developer Rhein-Ruhr Systemtechnik 2023-04-01 current 14 21.50 €/h
software developer digitally induced 2023-08-01 2023-03-31 14 21.00 €/h quit
software developer1 digitally induced 2023-02-13 2023-07-31 14 18.00 €/h2 raise
student tutor3 TU Dortmund University 2022-04-01 2022-09-30 14 13.05 €/h contract ended
student tutor4 TU Dortmund University 2020-11-01 2021-10-31 9 13.05 €/h5 contract ended
student tutor6 TU Dortmund University 2017-04-01 2020-09-30 9 10.68 €/h7 contract ended

If you happen upon this page, and also have your salary data published, you’re welcome to send me the link, so I can add it to the list.

  1. I was nearing my maximum time as working student for my university (thanks WissZeitVG), and I wanted to get some “real-world” experience, so I got a job in the software industry.↩︎

  2. In my interview, when asked for what salary I was expecting, I told my employer 21 €/h, which I based on salaries I knew from friends also working part-time, plus some wiggle room for negotiation.

    My employer suggested 18 €/h as a starting salary instead due to my limited non-academic experience, with prospect for a re-negotiation soon. I accepted.↩︎

  3. This consisted of 1 fixed-term contract, 6 months, for Funktionale Programmierung (functional programming).↩︎

  4. This consisted of 2 fixed-term contracts, 5 and 6 months, first for the Softwarepraktikum (software practical course), then for Funktionale Programmierung (functional programming).↩︎

  5. I got paid more than before because I had finished my bachelor’s degree.↩︎

  6. This consisted of 8 fixed-term contracts, 5 terms of 6 months, then 3 terms of 4 months.

    For the first 5 contracts I alternated between tutoring for Betriebssysteme (operating systems) and Funktionale Programmierung (functional programming), the last 3 contracts were for Softwarepraktikum (software practical course).↩︎

  7. Since then, the minimum wage in Germany was raised to 12 €/h, effective 2022-10-01. Now the salary for student tutors at TU Dortmund University without a degree is exactly those 12 €/h minimum wage. Take from that what you will.↩︎