The most common mistake I see US and UK companies make when hiring in DACH isn't about salary, or visa sponsorship, or interview process. It's this: they find the perfect candidate, make an offer, and then go quiet for three months because nobody told them the engineer can't start until their notice period expires.
In Germany, three months notice is entirely normal. At senior levels — Staff engineers, engineering managers, technical leads — six months is not unusual. If your hiring plan assumes a two-week handover window, DACH will break it every single time.
The short version: Build at least three months into every DACH hiring timeline from the moment you make an offer. For senior roles, assume four to six. Plan around this from day one, not after the offer is signed.
Germany: The Legal Framework
German notice periods are governed by Section 622 of the Civil Code (BGB). The statutory minimums for employers scale with length of service — starting at four weeks for new employees and increasing up to seven months for someone who has been at a company for 20 years or more. In practice, most employment contracts specify longer notice periods than the statutory floor, because collective bargaining agreements and individual contracts routinely extend them.
For employees resigning, the statutory minimum is always four weeks — but again, contracts almost always override this. The vast majority of tech roles in Germany come with a three-month contractual notice period written in from day one. It's not a seniority thing; it's the default. A junior developer joining their first Berlin startup will typically have a three-month notice clause in their contract.
The key practical detail: notice periods in Germany end either on the 15th of the month or the last day of the month, not on any arbitrary calendar date. So if an engineer hands in their notice on the 16th of February under a three-month notice period, they're leaving at the end of May — not mid-May. This matters when you're trying to plan a start date.
What about senior engineers?
At Staff level and above, and for engineering managers, four to six month notice periods are common. These are often negotiated individually and written into employment contracts. I regularly work with candidates who are sitting on six-month notice periods, particularly those coming out of larger German tech companies, established Mittelstand firms, or financial services roles. It's worth asking candidates upfront before you get deep into a process.
2026 update: Germany's EU Pay Transparency Directive must be transposed into national law by June 2026. This will require employers to publish salary ranges in job advertisements. This won't affect notice periods directly, but it will change how competitive offers look on paper — and how quickly candidates can benchmark and decide.
Austria: Quarterly Termination Dates
Austria adds its own complication: the default statutory termination date for employer-initiated notice is the end of the calendar quarter — March 31st, June 30th, September 30th, or December 31st. Not the end of any month. The end of a quarter.
In practice, most employment contracts (and collective agreements) modify this to allow termination at the end of any calendar month, which is more practical. But if you're working with someone whose contract hasn't been updated or who is on a more traditional arrangement, you may find their notice period doesn't expire until the end of a quarter that's two or three months away.
The statutory notice periods for employers in Austria start at six weeks and increase with tenure — six weeks up to two years of service, two months from two years, three months from five years, four months from fifteen years, and five months after twenty-five years. When an employee resigns, the statutory minimum is one month — but contracts can extend this up to six months by agreement, and many tech roles in Vienna and Graz do exactly that.
Switzerland: The Cleanest System of the Three
Switzerland is arguably the most straightforward of the DACH countries when it comes to notice periods. The Swiss Code of Obligations sets statutory minimums that scale simply: one month notice in your first year of service, two months from year two through year nine, and three months from year ten onwards. Notice periods are effective at the end of the calendar month.
In reality, tech roles in Zurich and Basel routinely specify three months contractually from the start — similar to Germany — regardless of tenure. The difference is that Switzerland's system has less variability: collective bargaining agreements are less pervasive in Swiss tech than in German engineering, so you tend to get cleaner, more predictable contractual terms. Three months out is usually a reliable assumption when planning Zurich hires.
One thing that genuinely sets Switzerland apart: Swiss employment is closer to at-will termination than Germany or Austria. Neither party needs to provide a reason for ordinary termination, provided the notice period is respected. This gives the market a slightly more dynamic feel — resignation decisions are quicker, and the process is less adversarial. It doesn't shorten the notice periods themselves, but it does mean transitions tend to be cleaner.
The Three Scenarios That Catch Companies Out
Scenario 1: The competing offer. Your candidate has a three-month notice period. A competitor makes them an offer two weeks after you do, with a slightly higher base. If they haven't handed in their notice yet, they can still accept the other offer and your process goes back to zero. The solution is to move fast on offers once you're committed — don't take two weeks to get approvals when the candidate is actively interviewing elsewhere.
Scenario 2: The garden leave candidate. Many senior engineers in DACH are placed on garden leave (Freistellung in German) when they resign — they stop working immediately but remain on payroll for the duration of their notice period. For you as a hiring company, this is actually good news: they can start earlier in practice if both sides agree. It's worth asking candidates whether their employer typically releases people early, because many do.
Scenario 3: The headcount freeze that expires. You open a role, spend eight weeks interviewing, make an offer, and the candidate has three months notice. That's five months minimum from opening the role to the person being at their desk. If your headcount approval has a six-month window or your funding round is closing, this timeline can become a real problem. The fix is to start the process earlier than feels necessary.
Can You Negotiate a Shorter Notice Period?
Sometimes, yes. Both parties can agree to a shorter notice period than the contract specifies — this is called a mutual termination agreement (Aufhebungsvertrag in German). It's common, particularly when the candidate is eager to join you quickly and their current employer has no strong reason to make them serve out the full period.
What you can do as a hiring company to help: offer a buyout of the notice period. This means you compensate the candidate for any salary they would lose by leaving early. In practice, this is common at senior levels where the cost of getting the right person into seat faster outweighs the buyout cost. If you're paying €150K for a Staff engineer, paying two months of salary to cut a four-month notice period to two months is almost always worth it.
What you cannot do: pressure a candidate to breach their contract by simply not serving their notice. This exposes them to legal liability and will damage the relationship before it starts. And in DACH, where the professional community is smaller than it looks, reputations travel.
A Quick Reference for 2026
Based on what I see in the market daily across active placements:
- Junior to mid-level engineers (Germany): three months notice in contract from day one. Statutory minimum is four weeks, but almost nobody works on statutory minimums in tech.
- Senior engineers and tech leads (Germany): three to four months is common; six months is not rare at larger companies.
- Austria: six weeks statutory minimum, but contracts typically specify two to three months. Quarterly termination dates may apply — always check the contract.
- Switzerland: one to three months statutory, three months contractual is market standard in tech. Cleanest system to work with.
- Probationary period across all three countries: notice periods are much shorter during probation — typically two weeks in Germany and Switzerland, and effectively zero in Austria (probation period is one month maximum, during which termination requires no notice at all).
The bottom line: if you're hiring in DACH and you're not building three months minimum into your planning from the moment you decide to open a role, you will consistently be surprised. Plan for it, communicate it to your leadership when forecasting team growth, and work with a recruiter who will tell you the candidate's notice period before you're three rounds deep in interviews.