Full-Stack Engineer Salary in Berlin 2026: €45K–€140K Complete Guide

Berlin is Germany's largest tech hub and one of Europe's most active startup markets, with over 500 VC-backed companies competing for full-stack engineering talent in 2026. If you write React and TypeScript on the frontend and Node.js or Go on the backend, you are in one of the most sought-after profiles the city has to offer.

This guide breaks down exactly what full-stack engineers earn in Berlin in 2026 — by seniority, by employer type, and by tech stack — plus how Berlin compares to Munich and Amsterdam, what German benefits are worth in real money, and how to negotiate your next offer.

For live percentile benchmarks, see the Berlin full-stack engineer salary data on CareerCheck.

Berlin Full-Stack Engineer Salary by Seniority (2026)

Total compensation at senior and above includes performance bonuses (typically 10–20% of base) and — at scale-ups — RSU grants that vest over 3–4 years. Fintech employers like Trade Republic and N26 tend to pay at the top of these ranges; earlier-stage startups offset lower base with equity.

Top Berlin Employers for Full-Stack Engineers

Berlin's full-stack engineering market is shaped by a mix of e-commerce giants, fintech disruptors, food-delivery platforms, travel tech, and consumer brands:

Zalando — E-commerce platform with 2,500+ engineers in Berlin. Senior full-stack engineers earn €85K–€120K base plus RSUs. React/TypeScript frontend, Kotlin/Go backend, strong engineering culture. Trade Republic — Berlin's fastest-growing fintech. Known as one of the highest-paying employers in the city, with senior total comp reaching €120K–€145K. Node.js, React, TypeScript across the stack. Delivery Hero — Food delivery platform operating in 70+ markets. Full-stack engineers working on ordering, logistics, and merchant tools earn €75K–€110K at senior level. N26 — Mobile banking leader. Strong React Native and React web frontend, Go and Kotlin backend. Senior full-stack packages in the €85K–€115K range. Spotify — Stockholm-headquartered, Berlin engineering hub. Compensation benchmarks against Stockholm and London, making it one of the higher-paying employers in the city. React, TypeScript, Python/Go backend. HelloFresh — Meal kit platform with a large Berlin engineering team. Full-stack roles focused on e-commerce, subscription management, and supply chain. €70K–€105K for senior engineers. Klarna — Swedish fintech with a growing Berlin presence. Competitive pay benchmarked against Stockholm. React, Node.js, Java across the stack. GetYourGuide — Travel experiences marketplace. Modern stack: React/TypeScript, Go, Kubernetes. Senior full-stack engineers earn €80K–€108K. FlixBus — Intercity mobility platform. React frontend, Java/Go backend, strong platform engineering. Slightly below the fintech leaders but strong benefits package. SoundCloud — Audio streaming platform founded in Berlin. Smaller team, above-market pay for experienced engineers, React/TypeScript frontend, Scala/Go backend.

Tech Stack: What Skills Command the Highest Pay

The Berlin full-stack job market rewards engineers who can operate across a modern cloud-native stack:

Frontend: React with TypeScript is the dominant pairing across all top employers. Next.js for server-side rendering and full-stack React is increasingly expected at senior level. GraphQL/Apollo for API integration is a strong differentiator. Backend: Node.js remains the most common backend language for full-stack engineers, but Go is gaining ground rapidly at fintech and infrastructure-heavy companies (N26, Trade Republic, GetYourGuide). Engineers who are fluent in both add significant flexibility. Infrastructure: Docker containerisation is table stakes. Kubernetes orchestration — particularly on AWS EKS or GCP GKE — commands a premium for full-stack engineers who can deploy and manage their own services. Senior engineers comfortable with Terraform and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, ArgoCD) earn 10–15% above stack-only peers.

Engineers combining all of the above — React/TypeScript frontend, Node.js/Go backend, GraphQL, Docker, Kubernetes — are at the top of Berlin's full-stack pay scale.

Full-Stack vs. Pure Frontend vs. Pure Backend: Pay Comparison

Full-stack engineers earn a modest premium over pure frontend engineers — typically 5–10% — reflecting the breadth of scope. Backend engineers earn slightly more than full-stack at mid and senior level, particularly at infrastructure-heavy companies where depth in distributed systems is highly valued. The gap closes at companies where owning features end-to-end (a full-stack model) is the engineering norm.

For a detailed comparison, see the frontend engineer salary guide for Berlin 2026 and the backend engineer salary guide for Berlin 2026.

Berlin vs. Munich vs. Amsterdam: City Comparison

Munich leads on gross salary by roughly 10–15%, driven by automotive and enterprise software companies with larger budgets. Amsterdam is nominally comparable to Berlin but the Dutch 30% ruling — a tax exemption allowing eligible expats to receive 30% of gross salary tax-free for up to five years — significantly boosts net pay for internationally mobile engineers.

Berlin's advantage is ecosystem density and cost of living. A senior engineer earning €95K in Berlin takes home substantially more after rent than a senior engineer earning €110K in Munich, where a two-bedroom apartment costs €400–€600/month more.

For a full German market overview, see Tech Salaries in Germany 2026.

German Employment Benefits

German full-stack engineer packages include statutory and employer-provided benefits that add real value beyond the base salary figure:

Sozialversicherung (social insurance): Your employer pays roughly 20% of your gross salary into German health insurance (Krankenversicherung), pension (Rentenversicherung), unemployment insurance (Arbeitslosenversicherung), and long-term care (Pflegeversicherung). This significantly reduces your effective out-of-pocket healthcare costs compared to contractor arrangements. Betriebliche Altersvorsorge (occupational pension): Employer-sponsored supplementary pension, often matching €50–€200/month. Contributions are tax-advantaged up to €7,248/year (2026 limit), making this a meaningful part of total compensation at larger employers. Urlaubsgeld (holiday bonus): Tarifvertrag-covered employers — more common in corporate than startup contexts — pay an additional month's salary as a holiday bonus, typically in June or July. Berlin tech startups replace this with flexible PTO policies and typically offer 25–28 days of paid leave. ÖPNV-Zuschuss (public transport subsidy): Most Berlin tech employers subsidise the BVG monthly travel card (€29–€86/month), effectively reducing your commuting costs to zero. Weiterbildungsbudget (training budget): Senior full-stack engineers at scale-ups typically receive €1,500–€3,000/year for conferences (WebSummit, JSNation, KubeCon), certifications (AWS, GCP), and online learning. At infrastructure-heavy companies, this rises to €4,000–€5,000 for Kubernetes and cloud architecture credentials.

How to Negotiate Your Full-Stack Salary in Berlin

Use Berlin-specific data. National German salary statistics include non-tech employers and lower-wage cities, which pull averages well below Berlin's actual market. Always anchor to Berlin-specific ranges — CareerCheck's salary page shows live percentile data filtered to the city. Stack breadth is your argument. Full-stack engineers who can articulate ownership — "I shipped the checkout flow end-to-end, from React components to the Node.js API to the Kubernetes deployment" — command more than engineers who describe themselves as "I do both frontend and backend." Frame your value as feature ownership, not role generalism. Counter with total comp, not just base. If the employer offers a lower base but RSUs or a strong pension match, calculate the full value. Equally, if you are moving from a role with equity, quantify what you are leaving behind and ask for a sign-on or accelerated vest to bridge the gap. German norms: Countering a first offer is entirely expected at Berlin tech companies, especially at the senior level. A 10–15% counter with market benchmarks as justification is standard. Employers typically have 10–20% headroom in initial offers.

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Full-stack engineering in Berlin in 2026 is a seller's market at senior level. Demand from fintech, e-commerce, food delivery, and travel tech exceeds supply for engineers who can own features from React component to Kubernetes pod. If your stack matches the market — TypeScript, Node.js or Go, Next.js, GraphQL, Docker, Kubernetes — and you have not benchmarked in the last 12 months, you are almost certainly leaving money on the table.