10 shortlisted startups and their 26 coolest jobs
Issue #114 (19 Aug) – pigeons' enemy no. 1; KitKat FAQ; great events and a raffle; Coffee with Luardo; do you have a mentor?; food festivals... blah; fight for Döner; tactics on time management.
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Programming note: I got bored with always making similar job selection, so I shortlisted 23 companies and checked every single one in more detail. I ended up with ten and selected the 26 most interesting jobs from their career pages.
Let me know if you like the idea. Yay, nay or meh?
I also published an article on mentors; you’ll find the link in the Snippets. Thanks to Mireia and Sam for their great contributions.
Does Paradox, 1up crew, or CMYK Dots mean anything to you? What is the point of graffiti—is it art or vandalism? Join us on a tour around Hallesches Tor in Kreuzberg, where, after the walking tour, you will have a chance to create a tag/graffiti yourself. I promise you’ll never look at Berlin walls the same again.
🌟 Handpicked community
is a place where we meet, share projects and ideas and look for help.
📨 Submit your input here. Inspiration for all the categories on the link.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
🎨 Handpicked Afterwork #1: Hands-on Street Art Tour | Tue, 27.8 at 18.00 | Hallesches Tor & Around
berlin product managers #13 — Please don't stop the Music | Thu, 22.8 at 18.30 | SoundCloud
**choose Handpicked Berlin on the dropdown for limited access**Techspace Summer Party | Wed, 28.8 at 18.00 | Techspace Kreuzberg
AI in Healthcare - Between Ambition and Reality | Tue, 10.9 at 18.30 | Merantix AI Campus
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
This Friday, Gezellig Sessions #38 with Ben Haydie and Odelly. 2 tickets for free and HANDPICKED for a 10% discount. If you’d like to go, fill this out, and I will pick two winners by Tuesday evening.
“I became a permanent resident! Here's how it went“ by Nico from Allaboutberlin.
You can apply for the Investment Readiness Program for Early Stage B2B SaaS Startups by Mediatech Hub Potsdam.
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
Events booker & Manager Carmen is looking for freelance tour guides & subject matter experts to hire for tours at the local hotel & hostel chain The Circus Berlin. We currently offer a diverse range of tours from 1920s Queer Berlin, to Späti crawls, to Turkish food tours, and we are always open to working with new people and new ideas. (contact: events@circus-berlin.de)
Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️
👀 Handpicked jobs SPECIAL edition
is a rotating selection of around 20 jobs from companies I’d check out. But today, the selection is based on the companies, not the position types.
selected 5️⃣ from promising startups and their coolest jobs:
24 additional jobs from this special edition collection are in Handpicked online database.
✨ Handpicked Deals:
is where you find good stuff. Your purchase will help sustain this project.
Is it time for you to start working on your German?
Learn German at SmarterGerman—HANDPICKED11 for 11% discount & free trial.
Practice German with other students at Deutschgym.
Goes with How to learn German and get over “Genau” and “mit Karte, bitte”?.
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Luardo Gamero
is where my guest contributes three links and an explanation while I write a short bio.
Luardo is a founder and host of the Guten Tag Podcast, where he has conversations about interesting topics with people living in Berlin and Germany. I met him and his co-host Benji in April, and one of our clips went viral on Instagram. An interesting experience! Here is what Luardo prepared for you:
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (book) - it might be a bit cliché since it was a bestseller a few years ago, but it completely changed my perception of the world. It made me realize how we all believe in myths and how these common myths form the foundation of our society, religion, states, and even economic models. The power of collective belief shapes our reality. This insight transformed my perspective on the world.
Design Sprints (video) - based on Jake Knapp book "SPRINT,” which describes a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. In this keynote, I learned how to create a product that makes sense, how to test the idea, and come up with a viable product. The video might seem “old,” but I find most of the principles still very important in today's product design life cycle.
Museumsdorf Düppel (place) - As a father, there is nothing more delightful than an outing in the city where my kids can learn and play, and I can relax. The Düppel Museum Village is a reconstruction of a High Middle Ages village from around 1200. Village volunteers also demonstrate medieval crafts. There’s also a playground beside the beer garden, allowing parents to relax while kids play.
🇩🇪 Berlin & other good stuff
is a selection of links focused on Berlin/Germany, career, timeless content and business.
🚨 Why should you consider getting a mentor? Here are my 2 cents and great contributions from two readers, Mireia and Sam.
The most annoying colleague award 🪵 goes to micromanagers (34%), closely followed by the ones stealing credit (29%). “Dammit, I hate it’s always such a close call,” commented one of the chronic complainers (22%). Meeting types (4%) and loud phone/meet callers (12%) were far behind. (n=224, last issue)
As expected, the ice cream festival was again (!) a disaster. If you are following HPB, we had a discussion last year already. Expect abnormal queues at the I’m-gonna-charge-entrance-fee-for-loads-of-food-trucks types of events. A hard skip!
If anyone knows of a perfectly executed food “festival” to write home about, please let us know in the comments or drop me a note.🥳 Worth mentioning and celebrating is the unbelievable news that Bürgeramt is planning to digitise Anmeldung/Abmeldung by October to release 600k/2M appointments (20percent Berlin via tagesspiegel). A genius move; welcome to the future 20 years too late!
A great KitKat Club FAQ: everything you need to know about KitKat. Now,
Here are the best lakes for swimming in Berlin with short descriptions. One of the links for your bookmarks. Go prepared and check the water quality before.
Döner trouble. Germany and Turkey are in a dispute because the Turkish International Döner Association wants the EU to recognize Döner meat as a "guaranteed traditional speciality." This would mean the enforcement of uniform production rules across the EU. If approved, this could make certain practices common in Germany, such as using veal or turkey meat, illegal. The ball is now in the EU Commission’s court; a decision is due soon. Döner, as we know it here, was invented in Berlin by Kadir Nurman in 1972. The industry is worth around €2.4B annually in Germany and €3.5B elsewhere in Europe. (FAZ and all German media, as expected in times of a national crisis)
Career: Sifted released a ‘24 report with the most promising B2B SaaS startups in Europe with valuations under €1B. 11 are from Berlin: Parloa, Qdrant, Plan A, Kittl, Taktile, CoachHub, Hive, charles, Moss, deepset and upvest. The lowercase trend is going strong!
Career: Lenny, what a guy. I found these ten tactics on time management extremely good. “Let’s hop on a call,” huehue.
Career: Never forget! Comparison is a thief of joy, but you can place yourself on an income map in Germany (data is a bit old, but still). Tears of sadness or joy?
Timeless: Whenever you feel down or want to rant/wonder about something that bothers you, you can use Compliment Me, an anonymous wrapper around an LLM. It never disappoints.
Timeless: Jake Seliger, a writer/blogger I liked reading, died. Here is his essay on saying goodbye—How do you say goodbye? “Death is forever, but the memory of me and of saying goodbye will live on as long as the people I have known and love do.”
📱 Weekly Social.
Reddit: If you see a beheaded pigeon, it’s not necessarily some random weirdo, but probably one of the 200+ goshawks in Berlin. They are extremely important for pigeon population control.
Elsewhere: Matt Damon on streaming’s effect on the movie industry (1:39)
💬 Briefly.
😔 Bad news: club Renate is closing at the end of 2025; Mister Spex -10% and closing stores outside Germany; Techstars -17%; Nui Cosmetics bankrupt.
Stats: Data is from the tax year 2020: almost 77k (or 4%) taxpayers had an income higher than €125k and contributed almost 41,3% in Berlin state coffers. (St.BB)
Bayer won a legal victory in its fight to limit liability from claims that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer. (RT) Their acquisition of Monsanto is still considered one of the worst M&A deals ever.
Porsche invested in Flix and announced that its stake is worth a "low double-digit million" euro figure. (MSN)
Biggest automotive suppliers feel the pain: in the first half of 2024, Bosch reduced job postings by 64%, ZF by 55%, and Continental by 25%. (FAZ)
Football club BVB paid out the first dividend after five years. They had revenues of €509,1M. (HB) The Champions League final literally paid off.
Revolut is valued at $45B following a secondary share sale; Jan Stechele, Chief Regulatory Officer, is leaving N26 in September. (Tech EU)
HelloFresh is branching out with pre-cooked meals called “ReadyToEat". (MM)
Rheinmetall acquired US-based military vehicle parts maker Loc Performance for $950M
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
is a list of companies that received funding over €1M.
SongPush | Berlin | All-in-one creator marketing platform | €2.94M Seed | Careers.
Caresyntax | Berlin | AI-driven surgery data platform | $180M Series C extension (equity + debt) | Careers.
Voiceline | Munich | Voice messaging for field service | €2.4M Pre-seed | Careers.
GIPEDO | Hamburg | Sports marketing automation software | €1M+ Seed | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
panzer of the lake percent calc wisdom
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
♡ 20% Berlin: all the Berlin news twice a week, in English! ♡
- all the Handpicked Articles worth reading
- Football in Berlin: all the links you will ever need - updated this weekend with more data on how to involve your kids (h/t Juan Almeyda)
- Berlin Salary Trends Reports: How do you compare?
- ❓Surprise treat for the curious
- The best questions to ask at a job interview
- Write it down now! Or why you should journal at work?
- What do hiring managers look for in CVs?
- Handpicked in media (podcasts and articles)
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
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