what kind of career do you want?
Issue #131 (06 Jan) – 23+ special selection jobs; new subreddit; Coffee with Paul; freelancer visa in 2025 and ideas to find work; food standards in Pankow; top concerts of 2025.
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Programming note: Welcome back to the regular programming. I am excited to introduce a new project, the Handpicked Berlin Expert network where you will find verified experts to help you with some of the most common challenges: from relocation, employer disputes and insurance to career development. If you are an expert and feel your skill set could benefit the community, do approach me.
🌟 Handpicked community
is a place where we meet, share projects and ideas and look for help.
📨 Submit your input here.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
Berlin, Germany - Small99's People, Planet, Pint™: Sustainability Meetup* | Thu, 23/01 at 19:00 | Ecosia
Thursday Gathering #4 Innoscapes - Mapping the New Year’s Horizon! | Thu, 16/01 at 17.00 | CIC Berlin
Bits & Drinks / Networking für digitale Köpfe der Hauptstadtregion | Wed, 29/01 at 18.30 | Spreegold Bikini
this could be your event - advertise it
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
If you and your startup want to go to SXSW 2025 in Austin, here is your chance.
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
(Inspiration: looking for co-founders, project partners or freelancers; search for tech & non-tech related service. Support for your hobby projects, ideas, and groups.)
we had no submissions; niemand hat sich gemeldet, schade
Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️
This section is also featured on LinkedIn in the weekly post.
*Sponsored
👀 Handpicked jobs
is a rotating selection of around 20 jobs from companies I’d check out.
5️⃣ from this week’s special selection: 8 startups, 4 established companies
The remaining jobs (also outside rotation) are in the Handpicked online database.
You can also submit a job.
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Paul Sullivan
is where my guest contributes three links and an explanation while I write a short bio.
Paul is a UK-born freelance writer and former photographer covering travel and culture for a slew of international newspapers and guidebook publishers. He started slowtravelberlin.com, a considered paean to his adopted city, in 2010. Here is what he prepared for you:
Walking around Berlin is one of my most cherished activities and strategy for finding new places and reacquainting myself with the already familiar. There’s a lot of great literature on why walking is a worthy pursuit but in particular I would recommend A Philosophy of Walking by French thinker Frédéric Gros, which shows how this simple activity benefits our health and creativity.
As a keen sustainability advocate and climate activist, I would recommend (former Berlin resident) Andreas Malm’s How To Blow Up A Pipeline. It was turned into a mediocre film that does not do the book justice. Readers should not be put off by the radical title: it’s actually a well-argued thesis.
And something for fun: watch Billy Wilder’s Cold War comedy, Eins, Zwei, Drei. It features James Cagney as a fast-talking Coca Cola marketing CEO and takes a farcical look at the clash between the values of East Germany and American consumer culture, and features shots of iconic Berlin locations such as Tempelhof airport in the early 1960s.
🇩🇪 Berlin & other good stuff
is a selection of links focused on Berlin/Germany, career, timeless content and business.
You can still participate in the 37-second-long year-end survey for the newsletter. A respondent gave me a great idea, and we now have our own subreddit where I will publish the link to the newsletter and other content. If you are on Reddit, please “join” the subreddit. Thanks, stranger.
Abi wrote about her experience in getting a freelance visa. Read her guide with lots of good tips. In case you missed it in the intro, here is the Handpicked expert network again.
If you often eat in the area of Bezirksamt Pankow (Prenzlauer Berg and around) you can check how well your favourite restaurant is following the standards. An instant bookmark, already posted in issue #35. I wish other Bezirkamts published it too. Wild that 390 or 22,2% of the places serving food aren’t able to follow the basic standards. It’s your ONLY job, ffs.
Top concerts of 2025 and 12 highlights of January by Tip Berlin. (🇩🇪)
I will waste some more ink on the NY fireworks which caused 50 cubic meters of waste more than last year (670 vs 620, compare with 2019’s 350!). You can see some more numbers here (RBB24, 🇩🇪). If you feel like it, you can sign a petition organised by the Gewerkshaft der Polizei (Police Union). Ruling politicians mostly aren’t in favour. (RBB24, 🇩🇪) I find “blaming” the federal government weak.
According to Gründerszene, these are the startups to watch for in 2025 (€, 🇩🇪): Taktile, Helsing, Greenlyte Carbon Technologies, Baller League, Proxima Fusion and Trade Republic.
Career: This article on planning to the end of your career is written from the perspective of software engineers, but works for the rest of us. Are you interested in seniority, management or independence?
Career: For the freelancers out there, 140+ comments thread on Hacker News on how to find work. Great ideas.
Timeless: Whenever something is designed or proposed in a certain way I always like to think there is a pretty good reason for A being there instead of a B. Someone was paid to think about the problem, so it’s safe to assume they did a good job. We cannot know for sure if it’s true, but here is a first-hand comment on Musk being a marvel of engineering. If you pay people to solve a problem for you, it probably makes sense to listen to them.
Timeless: A fun little toy: your name in Landsat.
📱 Weekly Social.
Reddit: Not sure if everything is true and why the post was removed, but here are some of the restaurants (and other businesses) that allegedly remove negative reviews on Google. We’ve been complaining about this here often… but you can’t really fight lawyers with templates.
Hacker news: Nostalgic thread about the 90s-00s internet. I also remember the beauty of the analogue modems and my first Geocities website.
Reddit: Streaming overdose in China.
💬 Briefly.
😔 Bad news: VW made a deal (good news) with their Union, but 35,000 employees will “in a socially responsible way” lose their jobs.
Stats: DAX, an index of 40 German blue chips, has risen 18.8% in 2024. The German magnificent seven were: SAP, Rheinmetall, Siemens, Siemens Energy, Deutsche Telekom, Allianz and Munich Re. The index was the best performing in Europe. S&P500 managed 23.31%.
Airtaxis saga continues. Now Volocopter filed for bankruptcy and Lilium found investors after laying off all 1000 employees previously. Mobile Uplift Corporation (MUC) invested €200M. MUC is a nice touch.
The dangers of a VC software-as-a-service financed company materialised when Bench, a Canada-based accounting startup, abruptly shut down in December. They raised $133M.
Tesla reported the first sales decline in over a decade, delivering 1.79M vehicles in 2024 vs 1.8M in 2023. On the other hand, BYD’s (Chinese competitor) sales went up +41% YoY (4.25M vehicles, including 1.76M pure EVs).
After (or due to?) Musk, now also future US VP, JD Vance, involved himself in the upcoming elections and demonstrated that he doesn’t really know what is he talking about.
Impressive data from Waymo on the impact of Automated Driving Systems. “Results demonstrate that the Waymo ADS significantly outperformed both the overall driving population (88% reduction in property damage claims, 92% in bodily injury claims), and outperformed the more stringent latest-generation HDV benchmark (86% reduction in property damage claims and 90% in bodily injury claims).” No wonder. Just observe how many people are texting while driving. Don’t.
If you still run Windows 10 you need to find a solution. The support from Microsoft stops in October this year.
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
is a list of companies that received funding over €1M.
Apheris | Berlin | Life sciences data network platform | €8M Series A | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
this year is our year
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
- How to find a great company to work for?
- updated! 11 12 things to know before you join a startup
- How to learn German and get over “Genau” and “mit Karte, bitte”?
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
- Football in Berlin: where to play, watch and how to get involved?
- 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?
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