have you ever been to Spandau?
Issue #148 (12 May) – 20+ design jobs; Product managers' salaries deep dive; two new unicorns; Coffee with Madeleine; how to get a German passport.
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Programming note #148: Last week, we got two new unicorns, Parloa from Berlin and Quantum Systems from Munich. Parloa was founded in 2018 and employs 300 people who work on customer service automation with AI agents.
I also did the first Salary Trends deep dive, starting with Product Management, and some data is surprising! Link in the snippets.
Email subject answer: check 12 things to explore in Snippet #5, and improve your German on the way.
🌟 Handpicked community
is a place where we meet, share projects and ideas and look for help.
Meet — handpicked events:
Join our iconic FemTech panel at betahaus on health & innovation, featuring fem-leaders from Dani-Health, Vögeln, ROOTS Berlin & YesWeBleed. Discover how ending stigma drives change, business, and community impact. | Thu, 15/05 10.00 | betahaus Kreuzberg*
Female founders & investors drinks (Gitex side event) | Thu, 22/05 18:30 | Location after registration
Berlin deep tech nexus meetup #3 | Tue, 20/05 18:00 | Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry and Science
ToolTime: Shaping FinTech | Mon, 19/05 18:30 | ToolTime
Into Design - Pre conference special: Into design systems + Figma at N26 | Tue, 20/05 18:30 | N26 Bank
this could be your event - advertise it
Show cool stuff or Ask for something:
Join the 6–12 month Founder Associate Program (Sep/Oct 2025) to work full-time with 2+ startups from Atlantic Labs & FoodLabs in AI, climate, food, health, robotics & deep tech. Be close to the action!
If you’ve built something great, you can apply for the Innovationspreis Berlin Brandenburg. (5× €15k)
Here is a cool project: Open Source Nanny, where working parents (from the tech & startup space) share tips and stories on their childcare setup.
📨 Submit your input for the community here. This section is also featured on LinkedIn in the weekly post.
👀 Handpicked jobs
is a rotating selection of jobs from companies I’d check out.
3️⃣ from the job board this week
Zeit AI - Forward Deployed Engineer in Munich, but very promising
For more jobs, check the job board. (This week I added a lot of Design related jobs)
Are you looking for new colleagues or work in HR? Submit a job.
✨ Handpicked deals
Your purchase or interest will help sustain this project.
Looking to pimp up your CV? Check my GEN AI guide.
🚀 Handpicked Launchpad: Germany needs builders! Recently or soon-to-be funded and looking for talent, beta testers, audience growth, event boost or more? I'm offering selected startups access to our 25,000+ audience.
If you need an expert, check the Handpicked ones: (employee) relocation, employment lawyers, insurance and career coaches. Great people for great results.
Learning German? Check all the articles we published (general, Netflix - ja/nein?, learning next to work)
☕️ Coffee Talk with Madeleine von Mohl
is where my guest contributes three links and I write a short bio. Permanent collection.
Madeleine is a co-founder of one the Berlin's startup ecosystem OGs, betahaus. I love what they are doing at beta! This is what she prepared for you:
Naturpark Südgelände — Natur-Park Südgelände: a wild urban escape in Berlin where nature, old railways & art meet. Explore forest paths, rusty tracks & sculptures—just minutes from the S-Bahn. No bikes or pets, just peace.
Pivot Podcast — Pivot is smart, sharp, and unfiltered. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway break down tech, business, and politics with wit, insight, and brutal honesty. It’s like eavesdropping on two pros who aren’t afraid to call BS—funny, fierce, and always relevant.
Wilmina Bread — Wilmina Brot, located in Berlin's Charlottenburg district, is an exceptional bakery that stands out.
🗞 Snippets
is a selection of links focused on Berlin/Germany, career, timeless content and business.
Berlin & Germany, career & timeless
I’ve completed the first deep dive into Salary Trends data and had a look at 205 Product Managers. The most surprising was the salary gap reversal at more senior positions.
Here is a great guide with tips on How to apply for German Citizenship in Berlin by Adi. You will need a verified biometric photo: Nico wrote a short guide on where to get it. DM sounds like the best bet.
You still have until Wednesday to visit one of the 45+ ice-cream shops that participate in the Gelato week. You get a scoop for €1.50.
Bezirk Neukölln is going to forbid temporary and furnished letting of flats (the invention of some landlords to circumvent the rent cap) in Milieuschutzgebieten (protected areas). The idea of these areas is to preserve the social structure of residential neighbourhoods, which can also include limitations on the type of renovations. More.
This will sound funny to some, but have you ever considered a day trip to Spandau? Here are 12 tips on what to do there from Tip Berlin. In German and tempting.
We got a new Kanzler. His first round vote failure was everywhere, with a lot of schadenfreude, but the majority was much tighter several times before. There is still hope.
Career: Great time management techniques that really work from Lenny. I use several, but I need constant reminders on their importance.
Career: Another testament to the fact that numbers of applicants on LinkedIn mean nothing. If you like the job and you see yourself as a fitting candidate, apply anyway!
Career: The pros and cons of knowing your colleagues’ salaries. Impacts on productivity, a smaller gender gap, but also slower growth.
Timeless: 101 rules of effective living is a good one. Many resonated: “Do not complain”, “Pay people on time”, “Recheck your work—especially beginnings, endings, and the easy parts” and “Write nothing you would not want read aloud in public”
Briefly
Bad news: CustomCells (Itzehoe, batteries) filed for insolvency, ProSiebenSat.1 -430.
Stats: Average Zalando customer annual spend was €296. (Q1 report).
Zattoo (Zurich/Berlin, TV streaming) acquired Green Streams.
The number of unemployed in Berlin in April increased to 217,508 (to 10.3% from 9.7% YoY).
Meta will soon train their AI on your public data. If you have missed the email sent to all the users, you can still opt out.
I find these BVG fines pretty cheap. €60 for graffiti, €50 for stealing a fire extinguisher, €15 for misuse of emergency call systems and €50 for holding up the door.
Revitalisation of Tacheles gone wrong? including an interesting comment thread.
Tesla’s sales in Germany fell by 46% in April. More sales data.
Sifted reports that Klarna is delaying the IPO until late 2025 and 1Komma5° until the next US election. 🧐 Related, Scalable Capital plans to be profitable in 2026 and is looking for an IPO in 4-6 years. (WiWo)
If you are into such things, vote on the hottest guy in Berlin. I voted for the manager of FC Union Berlin.
Weekly social
Reddit: People born in 1995 will be 30 this year. Also shows an example of bots posting and commenting on Reddit. It feels like we’re losing Reddit too.
Reddit: Beware of clicking too fast on buttons in Conny's emails.
💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany
is a list of companies that received funding over €1M.
Parloa | Berlin | AI for customer conversations | €106M | Careers.
Circula | Berlin | Employee expense management | €15M | Careers.
Duna | Berlin | B2B identity checks | €10.7M | Careers.
7Learnings | Berlin | Retail price forecasting | €10M (Series B) | Careers.
Quantum Systems | Gilching | Military drone technology | €160M (Series C) | Careers.
3D Spark | Hamburg | AI manufacturing optimization software | €2M (Seed) | Careers.
Mediform | Karlsruhe | AI medical phone assistant | €1.5M | No careers.
Daisytuner | Darmstadt | Code performance optimisation | €1.1M | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
are you creating enough shareholder value?
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Five articles with a treat:
How to learn German? Be better than "Genau" and "Mit Karte, Bitte!"
Football in Berlin: where to play, watch and how to get involved?
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Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin
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