May 5, 2025

three years and counting?

Issue #147 (05 May) – 59 jobs, comms and marketing focus; work with Brad and Serhii; free PM support for your NGO; Coffee with Onur; green tech bust; capitalist playground.

Make sure to never miss another issue. Subscribe:

---

Programming note #147: It’s hard to imagine, but Handpicked Berlin, which started as a small “gonna send some jobs on Mondays” idea, turned 3 years old.

🎈 Thank you so much for being a part of this journey.

Coming full circle with the jobs topic… you can now publish jobs with extended job descriptions on the Handpicked job board. I am especially looking forward to submissions of up-and-coming startups. It’s free. Thanks to all my HR friends who have already submitted some great jobs.

---

🌟 Handpicked community

is a place where we meet, share projects and ideas and look for help.

Meet — handpicked events:

• Zukunft.Gründer*innen demo day – Where impact meets innovation! | Thu, 15/05 9:00 | CIC Berlin

• Usability Testessen Berlin | Wed, 14/05 19:00 | Aleph Alpha

• Spring fintech breakfast with Taktile | Wed, 21/05 8:30 | Location after registration

• One2Hero: Financial excellence for startups: Live panel: N26, Earlybird & re:cap | Wed, 21/05 17:30 | N26 Bank

• Hardtech innovation demo day 2025 | Fri, 23/05 17:30 | MotionLab.Berlin

• this could be your event - advertise it

Show cool stuff or Ask for something:

• 💙 Berlin NGOs: Need help with a digital challenge? Berlin Product Managers can connect you with aspiring tech talent to support real projects: free, practical, and impact-driven. Contact Carlo.

• Côr Lumina Berlin is an international choir with a repertoire ranging from classical works to contemporary arrangements and fresh pop interpretations. Join their next live performance on 17.05.25. Proceeds go to charity.

• “Looking to speak to people who recently changed careers, are mid-pivot, or contemplating a big professional leap. If that's you or someone you know, I'd love a 30-minute chat for a project I'm developing (more info here).”

📨 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.

🚨 I’ve recently met Brad and we discussed his latest venture, tower.dev, a VC-backed platform for data scientists and engineers. He and Serhii have loads of experience building startups and data platforms (check their impressive LinkedIn profiles!) and are looking FOR YOU to join as a founding engineer for distributed systems or a developer advocate. These are two once-in-a-generation opportunities for you or someone you know:

• Founding engineer for distributed systems, where you’ll architect and build the distributed systems backbone of their serverless data platform, designing and implementing the critical API and control plane that orchestrates Python-based data applications across cloud environments.

• Developer advocate where you’ll serve as the crucial bridge between users and product development, gathering and translating customer feedback while simultaneously building the company's external presence through content creation, speaking engagements, and community education about Tower's serverless data and AI platform.

Here are 2️⃣ more from the rotation this week: Marketing & Comms

• DeepL - Senior Product Marketing Manager | Voice

• Vinted - Marketing Planning Analyst (6 Month Contract)

The remaining 59 jobs (also outside rotation and submitted by readers and HR) are in the Handpicked job board.

Are you looking for new colleagues or are you tired of paying exorbitant fees on LinkedIn? Submit a job.

---

Get your FREE ticket for GITEX EUROPE ⤵️

GITEX EUROPE 2025 is uniting the continent’s tech ecosystem with:

• 1,500+ exhibitors including AWS, IBM, SAP, Lenovo, Bosch and more.

• 950+ startups & 20+ unicorns pushing the boundaries of innovation.

• 500+ global thought leaders like the Godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, speaking LIVE

Let’s shape Europe’s digital future together! May 21–23, 2025 at Messe Berlin.

Limited FREE seats available – secure yours now!

(If you tried the last time and were surprised why the tickets aren’t free, I mistakenly sent the wrong link, sorry)

---

✨ Handpicked deals

Your purchase or interest will help sustain this project.

• 💻 Startups, freelancers, solopreneurs! Looking for a fixed or flex coworking space or an office for your team? Here is the direct link to the discounts.

• If you need an expert, check the Handpicked ones: (employee) relocation, employment lawyers, insurance and career coaches. Great people for great results.

• 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. Let’s build.

---

☕️ Coffee Talk with Onur Eken

is where my guest contributes three links and I write a short bio. Permanent collection.

I briefly met Onur at one of the rare interesting meetups I attended. Since then, Needle, a startup he co-founded, raised a €2.2M seed round. They are working on helping you organise your data and workflows. This is what he prepared for you:

• Modersohnbrücke — For me a simple and heartfelt way to experience Berlin is Modersohnbrücke near Warschauer Str. It's a great spot to hang out with friends on a summer evening. You can bring some drinks, enjoy the sunset, and soak in the cool urban vibe of Berlin.

• Whiplash (2014 film) — Just 5 minutes into this movie, I knew that I can relate to it. It's about passion, ambition, and excellence. Filled with intense emotions. If there's something you love doing in your life, this film will ignite your enthusiasm for it even more.

• Stoicism — In life, many things can and certainly will go wrong! As a solution-oriented person, I find stoic principles the most grounded and helpful piece of advice. They have been my north star navigating difficulties.

---

🗞 Snippets

is a selection of links focused on Berlin/Germany, career, timeless content and business.

Berlin & Germany, career & timeless

1. Salary Trends Survey report got featured by Sifted and Tech.eu. Yay! Next week, I will publish the first breakdown(s) by role.

2. À propos the third Handpicked anniversary: if you ever wondered how this newsletter started, here is the first issue.

3. If you need to order an ID, passport, or eID, you can do it without an appointment on the 14th of May (“Aktionstag”) everywhere except in the districts of Reinickendorf, Lichtenberg and Pankow. Makes you wonder if they will also do a “Anmeldungstag” next and why not.

4. BVG’s Verdi members voted in favour of accepting the recently negotiated agreement, which means no more strikes until at least January 2026, when an older agreement regulating working conditions expires. (RBB)
   Related, we are closer to the extension of the U3. Construction work for the renewal of the old railway depot has begun. If you have never been to Mexikoplatz, go; it’s like a different planet. Yorckstraße would surely be envious if it had feelings. The extension to Mexikoplatz was promised to be finished in 2030, but the Senate and BVG face heavy opposition of the local NIMBY rentners.

5. The fixed quota law for women in supervisory boards turned 10. It worked: 37.5% of supervisory board members in private-sector companies are female, up from 19.9% a decade ago. In public-sector companies, the figure reached 38.9%, up from 24.1%. The share of women on executive boards also rose sharply, quadrupling among listed companies from 5% to 20.2% and more than doubling in public-sector firms to 31% (2015: 13.1%).

6. 💎 If you’d like to donate your old laptop or buy a good used one, check out Sozialer Computerladen or contact Computertruhe. (via Reddit)

7. How are green tech companies like Enpal, 1Komma5°, Zolar and others doing? Manager Magazin reports (€) that not as well as expected, and that the boom years are gone. The article focuses on Enpal, which is facing strong competition: everyone’s goal is a complete energy package of a heat pump, solar system, battery and energy management. It seems like a race to the bottom. Good for the consumers, bad for the venture capitalist.
   

   

8. Here is a cool video about the architecture in Berlin and the ICC, “capitalist playground”, the biggest abandoned spaceship building in Europe. But the government has plans: we will see the result of the revival competition next summer. An amazing place, I hope it opens again!

9. Career: A very useful piece of career advice is that sometimes people just want to put beans up their noses, and you cannot do anything other than wait or accept it. Some eventually realise that beans don’t go up the nose, but others don’t.

10. Career: Remote work caused an unintended consequence — many fake North Korean applicants. Not sure about the “How fat is Kim Jong Un?” question, but definitely one for your “special tricks” Schublade. Is Germany also targeted? Did anyone have experience with fake applicants?

11. Timeless: A short story by Andy Weir, The Egg.

Briefly

1. Bad news: Y42 (Berlin, data platform) is insolvent.

2. Stats: Around 15,000 flats were completed in Berin in 2024, after 17,300 and 16,000 in the previous years.

3. Accountable (Berlin, accounting software) was acquired by Visma (Norway). Aleph Alpha (Gen AI) acquired Thingsthinking (Karlsruhe, semantic specialists). According to Manager Magazin, Sevdesk was sold for €400M, making it one of the biggest ever exits in Germany. (MM)

4. Revolut and N26 are entering the mobile phone tariffs market. They will compete with other digital providers like WinSim.

5. EWOR, a startup accelerator, pitching itself as the German Y Combinator, raised a €60M fund. Speaking of YC, in 2024 and 2025 Berlin had Rally, Dexter, telli, autarc and Pretzel AI as representatives. Munich had PandaAI and CoCrafter.

6. LiveEO (Berlin, satellite analytics) is expanding in Japan on the back of an undisclosed investment. (deutsche-startups)

7. Doctolib 2024: revenue €348M (+22.5% YoY), operating loss €53.8M (decreased by a third). Plans to be profitable soon.
   Vinted 2024: revenue €813.4M (+36%), net profit €76.7M (+330%).
   HelloFresh Q1: revenue €1.93B (+7%), EBITDA €58.1M (+250%).
   Deutsche Bank Q1 2025: revenue €8.5B (+10%), profit before tax €2.8B (+39%), net profit €2.0B (+39%).
   Mercedes Q1 2025: revenue €33.2B (-7%). EBIT €2.29B (down from €3.86B YoY).

8. Germany's spy agency, BfV, has labelled the entirety of the far-right AfD party as an extremist entity. Uf.

Weekly social

1. Reddit: “Berlin Moments” of last week.

2. Twitter: “No, no, no. No revenue!” or how the show Silicon Valley was a documentary.

3. Twitter: Trump’s tariff song.

4. Reddit: Could you understand English from 1000 years ago? It made me wonder which widely spoken language evolved the least.

---

💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany

is a list of companies that received funding over €1M.

1. Pliant | Berlin | Business credit card platform | €35M | Careers.

2. Solda AI | Berlin & remote | AI voice sales agents | $4M | Careers.

3. Arx Robotics | Munich | Autonomous military robotics systems | €31M | Careers.

4. ubiMaster | Munich | Unlimited tutoring platform | €7M | Careers.

5. Particula | Munich | Digital assets data platform | $5.5M | No careers.

6. Eeden | Münster | Sustainable textile recycling | €18M (Series A) | Careers.

7. 1NCE | Cologne | IoT connectivity platform | $60M | Careers.

8. Hy2gen | Wiesbaden | Hydrogen production | €47M | Careers.

---

😅 Meanwhile

---

*sponsored

Five articles with a treat:

• The 40+ best questions to ask at a job interview

• How to find a great company to work for?

• On employer brand and applicant experience

• Football in Berlin: where to play, watch and how to get involved?

• ❓Surprise treat for the curious

• …all the rest of Handpicked articles

Experts for your needs:

• (Employee) relocation, employment lawyers, insurance and career coaches.

Partners:

• Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin

• 20% Berlin: all the Berlin news twice a week, in English!

• betahaus: 20% off for first three months on your Pro membership

Things you can do:

• Advertise or submit a job.

• Join the discussion on Reddit.

• Rate us @Google or send a testimonial. Thanks!