Berlin Startups: What to look for when finding a good place to work?
I worked for the last three years in a Berlin-based Startup. I started there my career, found new friends, learned a lot of things, and now I’m taking a month off before starting my next position. So time to reflect and share my learnings with everyone who is interested.
Recently I saw a couple of articles popping up in the Germanys media (ZEIT, Tagesspiegel), that critize the working environment in Berlin startups. The major points of critique are:
- Exploiting cheap young professionals, with long working hours and cheap pay
- Needing to work on a task which you don’t have experience in
- Lack of Leadership and competitiveness among employees
- Racism and sexism is everywhere
- Bad Product Development practices
Reading those article, I was wondering if it was a good decision to start my career in a Berlin-based startup? Questions that popped up: Is working in a startup really that bad? Did I maybe never pay attention to the negative sides? Do I really want to work for a startup again?
Consequently, I decided to reflect on the last three years with this article and share these insights with everyone who is considering starting his career in a startup or wanting to switch jobs to become…