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EUR. Large industrial manufacturer. But as stated above, other friends working for Siemens, Bosch, BMW and the like don't earn less.

It actually is a igm contract. Base salary + "freiwillige Leistungszulage". Also I haven't had significantly less in my last job (in the last position there). Also a lot of friends (engineers/Maschinenbau mostly) earn (at least) the same. All at around 80k (with a 40h work week) all in my age (i.e. around 3-5 years out of university). And yes, bigger companies.

From my experience so far (cs/ee, software developer): work experience is more important than grades, current tech stack, interested/knowledgeable in what you're doing, networking (xing/linkedin helped quite a lot), bigger company for the first role also helped with salary. started out with about 58k (~13.8 salaries + bonus + >40 vacation days), quickly went up to around 80k (2yrs)

That's about what I get after taxes, too (in EUR, ~3.6k EUR), but my retirement (with 7% interest) and healthcare costs are covered completely. Also I have about 40 vacation days and a 37h work week :)

Europe is far beyond the US (regarding cs saleries, I mean), but in e.g. Germany it's not that bad. I've a masters degree and about 3 years work experience and am at around 6k a month (+ vacation bonus +christmas bonus +personal performance bonus +company retirement plan) which is quite average in southern germany at least for bigger company and engineering/technical roles.