Office language: English. Startup jobs in Hamburg for non-German speakers

Hamburg is a very enticing city. The moment you set foot in the Hanseatic City, you will fall in love with her. A friend of mine came for three days and ended up staying for two months with a roster of three outfits. See what Hamburg can do to you? Now, living in Hamburg is all fun and games but unless you have opulent parents/partners/friends to support you financially, you will need to get a job. And international as Hamburg may be, a vast majority of jobs will be out of your reach if you have no German knowledge. So here’s an overview of the startups, tech companies and a few bigger names where you can apply for a job in English.

The big names

A lot multinational online companies have an office in Hamburg, preferring it sometimes to Berlin or Munich. They are well-known brands and landing a job there will be tough, yet not impossible:

• Twitter (Altona)
• Dropbox (Gänsemarkt)
• Facebook (Gänsemarkt)
• Google (Gänsemarkt)
• Yelp (Rödingsmarkt)
• Microsoft (Bahrenfeld)

Source: twitter.com

Since September 2016, rumor has it Snapchat is looking for an office in Hamburg as well. Stay tuned! This could mean more jobs to come!

Games, games, games!

For some reason, there is a ridiculously high amount of gaming companies and startups in Hamburg. Good news for you, job-seeker! They usually are looking for a lot of people with various skills from IT to marketing, from design to localization. According to the Startup Monitor, the game industry represents almost 5% of the startups listed but accounts for 30% of the startup employees in Hamburg. Here are some of them:

• Innogames (Hammerbrook)
• Bigpoint (Gäsemarkt)
• Goodgames Studio (Bahrenfeld)
• Gamigo (Altona)
• DeepSilver FISHLABS (Rödingsmarkt)

Source: gamigo.com

E-commerce & retails

Usually less international friendly, they may still have a job offer or two listed in English, especially in the IT department. Check them out!

• About You (Rathaus)
• REBELLE (Meßberg)
• ePages (Messehallen)
• Buddy & Selly (Winterhude)

Other services

• The German equivalent of LinkedIn –  XING – is a big company in Hamburg, with a lot of job openings
• Translation agencies such as Tolingo and Lingua-World hire language experts every now and then
• Expedia, Dreamlines and mytaxi are some of the bigger names if you want to work in travel
• Jimdo, the website maker, is in Bahrenfeld and is also a big employer in Hamburg

Source: jimdo.com

These are just some of the bigger names on the startup scene, likely to help you find a job. Check out our job platform for more professional opportunities and the Startup Monitor for a comprehensive list of startups based in Hamburg.