How to find sustainable jobs and projects as a web developer in Germany

One of the main reasons I wanted to work self-employed again was independence and freedom of choice. Working where and when, but most importantly how and for whom seemed appealing enough to quit my 9-to-5.

High Standards and Compromise 🍏🍐🧺

Many employers seem to see themselves as modern and "green", eco-friendly companies. Proud about first steps towards sustainability, like the weekly fruit basket from a local organic farm, but maybe also driven by unscrupulous greenwashing marketing, you won't expect a lot of self-criticism.

In consequence, as a web developer who favors ethical and ecological jobs, I keep getting a lot of work offers that simply do not match my standards. I am willing to make a compromise, but at least some aspects should match.

This is especially true for mainstream business sites like LinkedIn that seem to attract a lot of recruiters who target the masses and don't care about collateral damage.

Job Search Alternatives 🔍🐕

Alternative: use special job sites like Impactify or Greenjobs (German).

You can also use job platforms that specialize in IT, like Honeypot, 4Scotty, or freelancing sites like Freelancermap or freelance.de. The companies on Honeypot and 4Scotty are usually mostly looking for full-time, on-site employees to join their teams, while freelancermap specialize in offers for contractors.

All of them seem to focus on the German market, so you only compete with other developers who have to pay the same taxes and high German living costs, and you can check other profiles for daily and hourly rates to see if your own rates are within the normal limits.

I also get occasional useful contacts via StackOverflow.

I have been using all of the above, and I should add the disclaimer, that the links to 4Scotty and Honeypot are affiliate links, so they might hopefully give me some financial compensation if someone registers for their service.

In my personal experience, all of those are still much better for a green web developer than Xing or LinkedIn.

Networking 🎪

Attending local and virtual meetups like the Sustainable Offsite Meetup is another opportunity to extend your network. Going to co-working spaces, maker spaces, and repair cafés might be another one.

If you are looking for an idea for a new software project, why not contribute to an existing open-source project? Building software for a good cause can help your learn and build your development skills as well as show off your work and get to know people all at the same time.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch 🇩🇪

As a native speaker, I tend not to notice the language barrier. But even at jobs and companies where you don't need to speak any German, you might stumble upon code comments, chat messages or legal forms in German.

So if you're an expat having plans to stay in Germany at least for some years, learn the language! It is hard, as I have been told, but it can also be funny and poetic, and it helps to boost your chances both professionally and personally if you speak the local language at least a little bit.

Further Reading

Parts of this article have already been published in my personal weblog at open-mind-culture.org.