Starting wage for a web designer in Germany

I am going for a interview for a job as a web designer for a small company. I have never had a job in this career before and just wondered what is a good starting wage to ask for?

If you don't know what you should be asking for...aw forget it, I'm off to bed.

... then you ask around. Geez.

But I won't be able to help. However, pay here varies not only by job, but also by age and gender (seriously)

If I were you I would look at job forums/sites such as monster.de and try to find out what other people are offering.

How good is your php and javascript? Cos web designing is basically programming these days, if you just want to type things into frontpage and paste in pictures etc, 30k might be ok, but if your a php and javascript guru and can make good functional web sites then go for 45k.

45k sounds high to me... or else I am underpaid!
I'm been a software engineer for 7 years and get paid that, so can't see someone starting out with little experience getting that amount!

What'ya coding in Jester?

Java/J2EE stuff!

Are you just coding websites? or more J2EE applications involving stuff like EJB, JMS etc?

P

At the moment I'm working on an client application that runs within a portlet (which is an applet) thats sending requests via webservices! Goes into production next week so mad bloody busy

What would be the going rate for someone with 7 years experience in Java, EJB, Servlets, Webservices, etc in Germany?

I came over here a year ago for personal reasons and the job market was not so good. There was a job going in a company that worked in a specific sector for which I had the niche skills so I was fairly confident of getting it which I did. I took a nice paycut compared to my job back in Ireland but I didn't have much of a choice as my German wouldn't be the best plus there are a lot of unemployed Germans! I looked at all the job sites but didn't see a single job that gave a salary range. One of my friends worked here 5 years ago (same skills) and was on 45k with 2 years experience but said jobs were easy to come by back then and now wages had dropped significantly since. He's been unemployed now for 2.5 years, so I was happy to accept it at the time. Where I work everyone is at least 10 years older and married and none of them discuss pay, so I've nothing to base it on!