4

As being part of IT industry, I am currently working as Senior Software Engineer in India.

I learnt that, Germany is the biggest IT market in Europe. I am not a German language speaker.

I have a plan to apply for a job seeker visa (Germany).

I understand that German language speaking ability, is always an advantage.

But, to seek IT jobs, do we need to have German language skill?

Gala
  • 17,379
  • 3
  • 27
  • 59
overexchange
  • 883
  • 1
  • 12
  • 26
  • 2
    Do you want to know whether there is a legal requirement to speak German for a job seeker visa or whether companies want you to speak German? – neo Jun 13 '15 at 08:38
  • 2
    There's no legal requirement, but It depends upon the company, their working language and the team you are assigned to. Also, if you are working remotely from India versus in the German economy. At the moment your question is too broad to qualify with a specific answer. – Gayot Fow Jun 13 '15 at 20:24
  • @GayotFow my question is, whether IT companies expect German language, mainly software development companies. – overexchange Jun 14 '15 at 02:56
  • Duplicate from the Workplace – nvoigt Feb 24 '17 at 09:28

1 Answers1

6

German is not mandatory for job seeking. You can apply for some positions in English (some job postings are even in English) and you can also get a work visa for highly skilled migrant or residence permit as a job seeker without demonstrating any knowledge of the German language.

In practice, some companies do hire English speakers but not knowing German will dramatically reduce the pool of potential employers. Unless you have some very specific skills/experience that might convince a large, internationally-active company like SAP or IBM or perhaps a startup to hire you, I don't think you would have much chance on the German job market.

Gala
  • 17,379
  • 3
  • 27
  • 59
  • 1
    Job seeker visa is the common term for a residence permit by § 18c AufenthG and can be granted to anyone who has a recognized university degree. You don't need a job offer for that. – neo Jun 14 '15 at 07:02
  • @neo That's what I alluded to in my parenthesis, but I was under the (erroneous) impression it was restricted to degrees from German university degrees. – Gala Jun 14 '15 at 07:53
  • 1
    Those usually stay by § 16 Abs. 4 AufenthG (which is much easier to get and provides more rights). Probably you are confusing it with that. – neo Jun 14 '15 at 08:09
  • @neo Yes, probably. I edited the answer to cover these. – Gala Jun 14 '15 at 08:58
  • @neo How would I check, if my degree is recognised? I have done my master's in computer science from India. – overexchange Jun 14 '15 at 13:58
  • 1
    @overexchange Most degrees which have been already assessed can be found in the database at http://anabin.kmk.org/no_cache/filter/hochschulabschluesse.html If your degree is not in the list you must try to apply for an assessment. – neo Jun 14 '15 at 14:40
  • @overexchange I can't give you any information beyond that. Please contact your local German embassy or consulate. – neo Jun 14 '15 at 16:36
  • 1
    There are a lot of job offers in Germany for IT jobs that don't require German, especially in Berlin, but from what I've heard most of them like to hire from within the EU, to avoid any working visa related overhead. – SztupY Jun 15 '15 at 08:31
  • @SztupY I forgot to mention startups, thanks for the remark. Beyond that, I did not say there are none but that's still a small part of the IT market I think. Even startup jobs in Berlin posted in English sometimes require some knowledge of German. – Gala Jun 15 '15 at 08:58
  • @Gala I based my estimations on the amount of recrutires that contact me and want me to go there (and no, they don't know I actually speak German) – SztupY Jun 15 '15 at 10:32
  • @SztupY Maybe you're in the “very specific skills” categories ;-) But still my point is that there is an even larger market that you might not hear about if you don't speak German. Plus, I sometimes get really strange contact attempts from third-party recruiters, they might be trying to cast a broad net, pad their databases or whatever but I would not assume there is an actual job for non-German speakers behind each contact. – Gala Jun 15 '15 at 10:45
  • It's also very useful to speak English in a way that the average native German colleague would understand easily. That can be a problem for a native Indian. – gnasher729 Apr 23 '17 at 09:24