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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2652 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 1, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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  1. becoming a regular gymnasium teacher in math/bio and going for that sweet civil servant status. Mostly an option if I lose my position though, since the income is almost identical if not a little lower

This is almost certainly incorrect. If you go all the way to civil servant, differences in social insurance contributions and pension fund contributions result in ~40% more take-home pay from the same net income. Add in the generous child payments (especially if you have 3) civil servants get, and you should be +>50% ahead on (arguably) -50% of the effort. German teachers like to complain, but it's a very attractive path if you don't have any grand aspirations career-wise and like spending time with your kids. Also, you can live about as rural as you want, which might give you another 500k EUR lifetime advantage just because of housing prices.

But yes, the first 2 years would suck. Much lower pay, more schooling, lots of work as you prepare each course for the first time.

  1. data scientist, ideally medicine/bio adjacent, possibly remote, possibly international

Super dead labor market, in my experience. I wouldn't even try applying for jobs unless you have connections from your network.

  1. actuary or other insurance/bank statistical work

Solid career. Depending on the firm, getting the actuary certification might be entirely optional and not even required for career progression.

On teaching, you're right of course once I'm actually a civil servant, but I need to get there, and I'm technically a Quereinsteiger, which makes it more difficult. As you say, my pay will be substantially lower for a long while, AFAIK much more than 2 years and the job market for teachers here locally doesn't appear all that great, especially not for getting into the Gymnasium. And elementary school teacher pay is both a lot worse, and it's also not something I'm at all interested in to be honest.

On data science, it's still the title that has by far the most posted openings. Though it's true that judging by some of the lowballing offers I've gotten in the past, many of those aren't really seriously looking.

On actuary, that's great. Most mention the certification in the application form though.

my pay will be substantially lower for a long while, AFAIK much more than 2 years

You probably have all the university credits necessary, so you're missing 1.5 years of accompanied teaching (with the seminar lessons running in parallel) and a few education science credit points. The latter can sometimes be gotten at the seminar itself, or you get them on the side at a PH or from a remote university. After that, you should directly qualify for civil service (if you're healthy, ect.). But most of those details vary a lot by state, so you need to do a lot of research anyway.

the job market for teachers here locally doesn't appear all that great, especially not for getting into the Gymnasium

Yeah, math should still be somewhat in demand, biology not so much. If you can somehow convince them into accepting your data science/programming/math experience as credits for computer science, you're home safe.

If you really want to teach, you can keep an eye on Berufsschulen. They also need math teachers and have way lower/different requirements.

Berufsschulen are the middle level of German schools?

And I take it civil servant is the equivalent of getting tenure?

Berufsschulen are vocational schools. Around 50% of German students attend those schools after finishing high school for a few days a week while doing an formal 3 year apprenticeship with a company. Classically, all trades have vocational schools, but also careers that would attend college in the US (nursing, accounting, system administrators, ect.) have vocational schools in Germany.

Civil servants is another classically German thing. It's a large class of government employees that enjoy extreme protections (absurdly difficult to fire, must be allowed to work part time if requested, ect.) and benefits (very nice pension, child benefits, ect.) - often in exchange for working a job where you cannot easily find equivalent work outside of government service. So examples are police, judges, firefighters, district attorneys, building inspectors, tax inspectors, head administrative staff at the city/state/federal government, ect. And, somewhat controversially, public school teachers.

No, Berufsschulen are a special kind of school for an Ausbildung, which you do after regular school. They help with the theoretic part of a practical education for a specific kind of job. As an example, if you want to become a mechatronic, you may learn the practical part working in an actual repair shop, and then for specific days you go to the Berufsschule and learn some basic electrical circuitry or whatever.

I would say it slightly differently, tenure is a special kind of being a civil servant, but yes.

I guess math/CS would also be a fine combination given my background. I have as much programming credits as math in any case.

But after looking up actuary openings again, that still seems like the better and less complicated option. But it's hard to gauge.

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