Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full stack developer would be fortunate to get 90-95k euro annually. That is plenty of money if you intend to stay in Berlin, but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Also, housing is a huge problem there and it can take 6 months to find even a basic flat. I am an American developer that lived there for many years and my co-workers were usually Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, Russian, Lebanese, and now Indian. It was rare to find an actual German coder.
I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.
90-95k would be impossibly high in Belgium, which is but a stone's throw away from Germany. If that isn't enough money to save, you're doing something very wrong, or your idea of a cheap city might differ from mine.
Currently the market for software developers is very complicated in Germany.
Basically, the answer is: if you have a job, you stay there (at least until hopefully in a few years the job market situation for software developers in Germany improves).
The question should be "where did they go?" - to Switzerland, years ago already.
How do I know? I've met them there. My project of close to 40 people was over 80% German. Contractors overall were mainly German as well.
And it makes huge sense - in the German part language is largely the same where it matters and salaries are much better. Also there aren't nearly enough Swiss programmers to fill all the positions.
If I were German, I would be in Zürich right now, admiring its hideous bare concrete 20-21st century architecture.
I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.