The 228 Berlin startup roles that say what they pay

On September 17, Zalando had 75 open Berlin roles on Pegel. Not one of them said what the job pays. N26 had 59. Helsing had 46. GetYourGuide had 42, Delivery Hero 33, Trade Republic 8. No numbers anywhere.

Across the whole board, 2,980 Berlin startup roles were open at the September 17 capture. 228 of them carried a salary figure, fewer than one in thirteen. This post is what the board's own feed shows about who discloses and what the numbers say.

Draft figures, not independently verified. A missing recorded salary does not establish that the employer disclosed none. Open any chart to read it at full size.

Sixty-four companies out of 339

339 companies had at least one open Berlin role on Pegel that day. 64 of them had a number on at least one role. Ten disclosed on essentially everything they posted, and nine of those ten were small posters with fewer than five open roles each. Disclosure as a company policy, at real volume, is close to extinct.

The largest discloser on the board sells heating systems. Thermondo, a Berlin company that modernizes heating in apartment buildings, had numbers on 28 of its 32 open roles. A senior full-stack engineer starts at €80,000. A product specialist for electrical engineering runs €75,000 to €90,000. The most transparent employer on a startup job board is not a startup in the way the scene uses the word, and that is more informative than flattering.

Almedia, a Berlin adtech, posted 27 numbers across 49 roles. Solaris, a bank that is also a startup, posted ranges on 16 of 21. Leapsome disclosed on 10 of 14. Planet Labs, headquartered in San Francisco, where state law already requires a posted range, disclosed on 13 of 16 Berlin roles, because a California template travels.

What the numbers say

The clean comparable set is roles posting a full range, floor and ceiling both, in euros per year: 174 roles. Monthly and hourly postings exist, mostly Werkstudent and contract work, and sit outside these medians.

The median floor is €68,000. The median ceiling is €84,000. The middle half of all floors sits between €55,000 and €85,000.

Bucketed by title keyword, which is an approximation: roles with senior, lead, staff, principal or head in the title posted a median range of €80,000 to €110,000. Junior titles posted €50,000 to €60,000. The unlabeled middle posted €65,000 to €76,100.

The top of the disclosed market was Almedia: a Senior Venture Lead at €140,000 to €180,000, a Head of Product Design at €130,000 to €180,000.

The band is a negotiation cushion

When a company discloses, it nearly always posts a range. 211 of the 228 disclosing roles gave both a floor and a ceiling, and the median band was 25 percent as wide as its floor. €68,000 to €84,000 is the normal shape.

Read that shape for what it is. The company states where it starts and where it stops, and keeps a quarter of the money between the two for the negotiation it expects.

The deadline in the middle of the window

On June 7, the EU Pay Transparency Directive's transposition deadline passed. Germany still has no law. If the deadline had pulled behavior forward, roles that appeared after it would disclose more than the ones that appeared before.

The feed says otherwise. Grouped by the month a role first appeared, counting every Berlin posting first seen that month including ones that have since closed, disclosure has sat between 5.5 and 8.1 percent every month since May. June: 6.6 percent. July: 8.1. August: 6.4. September so far: 6.2. Flat. Berlin startups are not bracing for a law that does not exist yet, and the ones that disclose do it for their own reasons, not for Brussels.

Reading a posting

A missing number on Pegel means the extraction found no amount to show. It does not prove the employer hid pay from every version of the posting, and it is the default state of a Berlin startup role today, not a signal about the job.

When a number is there, the net salary calculator runs a gross figure through German tax brackets and social contributions. It will not invent a number for a posting that has none. Nothing on Pegel does.

Method

Every figure comes from the employer's own posting, read from public ATS feeds. Pegel never estimates a salary it was not given; a posting with no number stays silent in the database too. The snapshot figures describe the 2,980 active Berlin roles at the capture on September 17, 2026, 19:55 UTC. The monthly trend counts complete cohorts: every Berlin posting first seen in that month, active, expired or hidden, so the percentages are disclosure rates of what appeared, not of what survived. Berlin means a posting whose location contains "Berlin", matching Pegel's shared scope rule.

Pegel retains the dated aggregate capture and calculation definitions with this post and will rerun these numbers each quarter. If the German bill lands and behavior starts to move, this is where the movement shows up first.