How to Apply to DATEV

12 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 39 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • A few patterns reliably kill DATEV applications, and all of them are avoidable.
  • Second, submitting a heavily designed, multi-column, infographic-style resume disrupts Workday's parser and reduces the chance of clean forwarding to the hiring manager; stick to a clean single-column PDF.
  • Fourth, signaling short-horizon intent, 'I am looking for a 12 to 18 month role to build skills before moving on,' closes doors quickly at DATEV in a way it might not at a Berlin startup.

About DATEV

DATEV eG is one of those companies most non-Germans have never heard of, but that every German Steuerberater, Wirtschaftspruefer, and Lohnbuchhalter interacts with daily. Founded in 1966 in Nuremberg by a small circle of tax advisors, DATEV has grown into a registered cooperative (eingetragene Genossenschaft, the legal suffix eG in its name) with more than 40,000 members, approximately 8,500 employees, and annual revenue north of one billion euros. It processes payroll for a meaningful share of the German workforce, runs the accounting backbone for a majority of the country's tax advisors, and is widely considered critical infrastructure for the Mittelstand economy. When DATEV has an outage, German payroll runs late. That single sentence tells you most of what you need to know about the stakes of working there and about the kind of engineering discipline the company expects. This guide walks candidates through the entire DATEV application journey, from understanding the cooperative governance model and what it means for hiring, to locating the right entry path (direct-entry, Werkstudent, Ausbildung, duales Studium, or Praktikum), to navigating the Workday application system, to preparing for interviews with teams that value methodical thinking over flashy delivery. It is written for technical candidates (Software Development, Data & AI, Platform & Systems, Cloud), business-side candidates (Controlling, Product Strategy, Customer & Partner Relations), and early-career entrants considering DATEV as a first serious employer. Whether you are a Diplom-Informatiker from FAU Erlangen-Nuernberg, a career-switcher moving into fintech, or an international hire weighing Nuremberg against Munich or Berlin, the pages below were assembled to be the most useful, honest resource on the internet for getting an offer from DATEV. DATEV eG is headquartered at Paumgartnerstrasse 6-14 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, a short walk from the Nordostbahnhof. The campus spans multiple buildings across the north of the city, including the newer Fuerther Strasse 28 location, and DATEV maintains satellite offices in Berlin, Freiburg, Hannover, Muenchen, Stuttgart, and Ulm. Nuremberg, however, is the gravitational center of the company and of the role; at any given moment roughly nine out of ten open positions are based there. Candidates who are not willing to relocate to Franken or who are not already local should think carefully before applying, because DATEV's hybrid model still assumes a commuting relationship with the Nuremberg campus for most technical and product roles. The cooperative structure is the single most important fact about DATEV as an employer, and it is also the one most often misunderstood. DATEV is not a public company. It is not owned by private equity, it has no Silicon Valley venture investors, and its shareholders are not index funds. Its members, the Steuerberater and Wirtschaftspruefer who rely on DATEV software to serve their clients, are also its owners. Members elect the Aufsichtsrat, which appoints the Vorstand, and the cooperative's long-term obligations are first and foremost to those members. This produces an employer culture with properties you rarely find at American SaaS companies: extreme attention to backwards compatibility (because 500,000 tax advisors cannot change their workflows every quarter), very long product horizons (DATEV software from the 1980s is still referenced in current documentation), and a deep institutional allergy to breaking changes. If you thrive in a move-fast-and-break-things environment, DATEV will drive you to distraction. If you want to build infrastructure that quietly carries the weight of a national economy for decades, the company is unusually rewarding. The product surface area is enormous. The flagship is the DATEV-Rechenzentrum, the data center in Nuremberg that processes payroll (Lohn und Gehalt), financial accounting (Kanzlei-Rechnungswesen, Unternehmen online), tax filings (ELSTER integration, Einkommensteuer, Umsatzsteuer), and document workflows for tens of thousands of tax advisory firms. Around the Rechenzentrum the company runs DATEV Cloud, DATEV Marketplace (an API and third-party integration platform launched in recent years), DATEV Smart IT (a managed workplace offering), and a growing portfolio of AI-assisted tools for automating routine tax and accounting work. The digital transformation push is not marketing language here; it is a visible, multi-year investment rewriting legacy Windows-first products into cloud-native services. This investment is the primary reason DATEV currently has a deep, steady hiring pipeline for Software Development, Platform and Systems, Data and AI, and Product Strategy and Design roles.

Application Process

  1. 1
    DATEV hires through five distinct paths, and understanding which one applies to

    DATEV hires through five distinct paths, and understanding which one applies to you is the single most important decision in the application process. Sending a direct-entry Bewerbung for a role that the company only fills through Ausbildung is a fast way to be rejected, and the reverse is equally true.

  2. 2
    The first path is Ausbildung, the classic German vocational apprenticeship progr

    The first path is Ausbildung, the classic German vocational apprenticeship program. DATEV runs Ausbildung programs for Kaufleute fuer Digitalisierungsmanagement (formerly Informatikkaufmann), Fachinformatiker in both Anwendungsentwicklung and Systemintegration, and a handful of commercial specialties. These are three-year programs starting in early September, combining on-the-job training at the Nuremberg campus with blocks of Berufsschule. Applications for the September intake open roughly a year in advance, which is why the live Workday board already shows Ausbildung roles for the September 2026 cohort. Ausbildung is the main source of DATEV's junior talent pipeline for operations, systems, and commercial roles, and it remains one of the most reliable ways to enter the company without a university degree.

  3. 3
    The second path is the duales Studium, a combined bachelor's program with a part

    The second path is the duales Studium, a combined bachelor's program with a partner university, typically DHBW Stuttgart, DHBW Mosbach, or the Technische Hochschule Nuernberg. Candidates alternate theory semesters at the university with practice phases at DATEV. Relevant tracks include Wirtschaftsinformatik, Informatik, Angewandte Informatik, and Betriebswirtschaft. This is the preferred path for candidates who want a degree and a guaranteed role at a Mittelstand-adjacent cooperative, and it is unusually competitive; acceptance rates into DATEV's duales Studium are in the low single digits for the most popular tracks.

  4. 4
    The third path is Werkstudent work, which is where DATEV absorbs a large share o

    The third path is Werkstudent work, which is where DATEV absorbs a large share of Nuremberg-area students. The company's live board regularly lists 15 to 25 Werkstudent roles across Data and AI, Automation, Customer Service, Controlling, Software Development, and Marketing. These are formally part-time (typically 20 hours per week during semesters, full-time during vacation periods) and are paid on an internal Werkstudent tariff. Many DATEV employees started this way: three or four semesters of Werkstudent experience while finishing a degree at FAU Erlangen-Nuernberg, THN, or Uni Bamberg, followed by a direct-entry offer into the team they already know.

  5. 5
    The fourth path is Praktikum, a longer-form internship usually scoped at three t

    The fourth path is Praktikum, a longer-form internship usually scoped at three to six months and tied either to a mandatory curricular placement (Pflichtpraktikum) or to a voluntary pre-thesis engagement. Praktikant roles at DATEV are rarer than Werkstudent roles but are more likely to result in a supervised Abschlussarbeit (bachelor or master thesis written in collaboration with the company).

  6. 6
    The fifth and largest path by absolute headcount is direct entry, sometimes list

    The fifth and largest path by absolute headcount is direct entry, sometimes listed as Berufserfahrene or Professionals. These roles fill from experienced candidates coming out of Mittelstand IT, consultancies, tax and audit firms (for business-side roles), or other cooperative and regulated-industry employers. Direct entry candidates compete on technical depth, German language ability, and demonstrated familiarity with the problem domain, whether that is payroll, tax workflows, enterprise identity, or cloud platform engineering.

  7. 7
    There is also an implicit sixth path worth noting: Schuelerpraktikum, short one-

    There is also an implicit sixth path worth noting: Schuelerpraktikum, short one-to-two-week school placements for teenagers exploring careers. DATEV's live board typically shows one or two of these at a time. They are not for adult candidates but are a hint that the company takes its regional talent pipeline seriously.

Resume Tips for DATEV

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The resume conventions DATEV expects are the German standard, with modest flexib

The resume conventions DATEV expects are the German standard, with modest flexibility for international candidates applying to global or English-language roles. For most Nuremberg-based positions you should submit a Lebenslauf in reverse-chronological format, on one or two pages, with a clean single-column layout that Workday's parser can read cleanly. Anschreiben (cover letter) is not always required, but including one in German for German-language roles signals effort and is rarely a waste. If the job posting lists 'Gehaltsvorstellung' (salary expectation) or 'frueheste Verfuegbarkeit' (earliest start date), answer both in the Anschreiben or the application form; leaving them blank is read as uncertainty.

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German resume norms differ from American ones in ways worth stating explicitly

German resume norms differ from American ones in ways worth stating explicitly. A Bewerbungsfoto, a professional headshot in the header, remains common in Germany and is neither expected nor penalized at DATEV; including one is fine if it is a current, neutral, professional photo, and omitting one is also fine, particularly for international candidates. Date of birth, place of birth, and marital status are legally protected categories in Germany and you are under no obligation to list them, though many German candidates do. Your Ausbildungsweg (education history) should include exact dates and institution names, and your Berufserfahrung entries should list employer, location, dates, job title, and a short bullet list of responsibilities and measurable outcomes.

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For technical roles, DATEV recruiters pay attention to concrete stack familiarit

For technical roles, DATEV recruiters pay attention to concrete stack familiarity. The internal technology mix leans toward enterprise Java and .NET on the legacy side, Spring Boot and modern Java on newer services, Angular and TypeScript on the frontend, Azure on the cloud side (DATEV has a visible Microsoft Azure partnership for its cloud migration), SAP for internal systems, and a growing Python and Databricks footprint on the Data and AI side. If you have commercial experience with any of these, name them precisely and with version or release cadence; vague entries like 'cloud experience' are read as filler.

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Language expectations matter more at DATEV than at most other Nuremberg tech emp

Language expectations matter more at DATEV than at most other Nuremberg tech employers. Fluent German, typically at C1 level or higher, is a practical requirement for a majority of roles, because the product domain (German tax law, German payroll law, German accounting standards) is documented in German, the customers are German tax advisors, and team communication for most non-platform teams defaults to German. A growing minority of engineering teams, particularly in newer cloud and AI groups, operate in English, and for those roles strong English with B1 or B2 German is sometimes acceptable. The job posting will specify. If the Anforderungsprofil says 'Deutschkenntnisse auf muttersprachlichem Niveau' or 'sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse' the role is not a candidate for an English-only application.

ATS System: Workday

DATEV eG uses Workday as its applicant tracking system. The live job board is hosted at datev.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/de-DE/Datev_Careers and is also reachable through the branded career site at karriere.datev.de, which eventually links out to the same Workday instance. Candidates who begin at datev.de/karriere are redirected to karriere.datev.de and from there follow the 'Alle Jobs' link or the role-specific listings into Workday. A few practical consequences follow from the ATS being Workday. First, candidates create a Workday account tied to the datev.wd3 tenant, and that account does not roam. If you have applied to another Workday-hosted company (for example, Allianz, Siemens Healthineers, or Snap), you will still need a fresh DATEV-scoped profile. Second, Workday's parser reads PDF, Word, and OpenOffice documents reliably, but it does not love design-heavy layouts with multiple columns, sidebars, or background graphics. A clean single-column Lebenslauf or English-language CV in PDF is the safe format. Third, the Workday application flow at DATEV is bilingual: the careers portal itself is offered in German and English, but individual job postings are written in the language the hiring team works in, which for the majority of roles in Nuremberg is German. Fourth, DATEV offers an opt-in Talent Community within Workday. Signing up for relevant job alerts is worth the 90 seconds, because senior DATEV recruiters do source candidates out of the pool when a role opens in a team that has no current pipeline. The raw Workday CXS endpoint at datev.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/wday/cxs/datev/Datev_Careers/jobs confirms the setup and is occasionally useful for candidates who want a programmatic view of the full board, but for almost all applicants the standard web interface is the correct entry point. Applications submitted through LinkedIn Easy Apply or third-party aggregators sometimes land in Workday without a full profile attached, which slows the internal routing; if possible, apply directly through DATEV's Workday instance so your data enters the system cleanly.

  • DATEV eG uses Workday as its applicant tracking system.
  • A few practical consequences follow from the ATS being Workday.
  • The raw Workday CXS endpoint at datev.

Interview Culture

The DATEV interview process is methodical and predictable, which is an asset for candidates who prepare.

The typical flow for a direct-entry technical role runs through four stages and takes between four and eight weeks from application to offer. Stage one is the Workday application review. A recruiter from the DATEV Talent Acquisition team screens the application against the role's Anforderungsprofil, verifies language and location fit, and forwards qualified profiles to the hiring manager. This stage is the one most sensitive to resume hygiene, ATS parseability, and Anschreiben clarity. Candidates typically hear back within two to three weeks. Stage two is a telephone or video Kennenlerngespraech, usually 30 to 45 minutes with the recruiter or with the recruiter and hiring manager jointly. The goal is to verify motivation, German language level, availability, and rough salary band. Candidates should expect specific questions about why DATEV specifically, rather than a generic Nuremberg tech employer. Strong answers reference the cooperative model, the critical-infrastructure nature of the product, or a specific team or domain the candidate has researched. Stage three is the fachliches Interview, a longer technical or domain conversation, usually 60 to 90 minutes, held on-site at the Nuremberg campus or over Microsoft Teams. Technical candidates should expect system design discussions anchored in real DATEV-scale problems (multi-tenant data isolation for tax advisor firms, long-lived audit trails, strict GoBD and GDPR compliance), coding or code-review exercises appropriate to the stack, and questions that probe how you handle backwards compatibility, regulated environments, and change management. Business-side candidates should expect case-style discussions of customer or product scenarios, with emphasis on how the candidate would weigh the needs of diverse member firms. DATEV does not typically run the multi-round, high-pressure coding gauntlet associated with FAANG interviews; the tone is more senior-Mittelstand than bootcamp-graduate. Stage four, for most roles, is a final gespraech with the team, often including future colleagues and sometimes a second hiring manager or a member of the Bereichsleitung. This is as much a culture-fit and mutual-fit conversation as a skills check. Expect questions about how you work in teams, how you handle disagreement, and what you are looking for in your next five years. DATEV explicitly values stability and long-tenured employees; candidates who signal a two-year maximum horizon rarely clear this stage. Offers are extended by the recruiter, usually by phone followed by a written Vertrag in German. The Vertrag will specify the internal Gehaltsgruppe (salary band) rather than a negotiated number; DATEV's pay structure is closely modeled on collective-bargaining norms (Tarifvertrag principles) even when the specific role is not formally tarifgebunden, and internal equity tends to compress negotiation room. Werkstudent and Ausbildung paths have far less pay-band negotiation; the numbers are effectively fixed.

What DATEV Looks For

  • DATEV's culture is shaped by three forces that are usually in quiet tension.
  • What this looks like day to day is a workplace that rewards methodical preparation, clear written communication in German, respect for established processes, and genuine interest in the customer domain.
  • The workforce is majority German and predominantly Franken or Bavaria based, though DATEV has been increasing its international hiring, particularly into newer cloud and AI teams where English can be a working language.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does DATEV eG use, and is there a direct link to the job board?
DATEV uses Workday. The verified live job board is hosted at datev.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/de-DE/Datev_Careers and is also reachable through karriere.datev.de. Both routes lead into the same Workday instance. As of this guide's last verification the board showed 39+ open positions, with the overwhelming majority based in Nuremberg.
Do I need to speak German to work at DATEV?
For most roles, yes. A practical C1 German level is expected for any role that touches product domain (tax, payroll, accounting), customer-facing teams, or traditional business functions. A growing minority of engineering teams, especially in newer cloud and Data and AI groups, operate in English and can accommodate strong B1 or B2 German with C1 English. The job posting will state the requirement explicitly; take it literally.
Is DATEV a good fit for international candidates relocating to Germany?
It can be, especially for senior technical candidates entering English-capable teams, but the fit is stronger for candidates who are already Germany-based or who are committed to a multi-year relocation to Nuremberg. DATEV's hybrid model still assumes regular presence at the Nuremberg campus, the product domain is deeply German, and the cultural expectation of long tenure is real. If you are looking for a 12 to 24 month European stint before returning home, a Berlin or Munich startup is likely a better match.
What are the entry paths for students and recent graduates?
Five paths. Ausbildung (three-year vocational apprenticeship, typical start in September, applications open roughly a year in advance). Duales Studium (combined bachelor with a partner university, highly competitive). Werkstudent (part-time student employment, 15 to 25 roles open at a time, strong pathway to direct-entry offer). Praktikum (three to six month internship, often tied to a thesis). Direct entry for new graduates with a completed degree. Werkstudent followed by direct entry is the most common path into DATEV for locally-based German students.
What is the typical interview process at DATEV?
Four stages. A recruiter-led application review, a 30 to 45 minute Kennenlerngespraech by phone or video, a 60 to 90 minute fachliches Interview that is technical for technical roles and case-style for business roles, and a final team and hiring-manager gespraech. Total elapsed time from application to offer is typically four to eight weeks. The tone is senior-Mittelstand rather than high-pressure FAANG.
Does DATEV offer stock or equity compensation?
No. DATEV is a registered cooperative (eG) and cannot issue equity to employees. Compensation is cash salary, benefits, company pension (bAV), and a profit-sharing or bonus component tied to cooperative performance. Candidates oriented primarily toward equity upside should calibrate expectations accordingly.
What is the typical compensation range for a software engineer at DATEV?
Early-career direct-entry engineers typically land in the upper 50s to lower 70s thousand euro gross per year. Mid-career engineers with five to ten years of experience commonly see 70,000 to 95,000 euros. Senior and staff-equivalent roles exceed 100,000 euros, with senior leaders above 120,000. Ranges vary by specialization (Data and AI and Cloud tend to sit higher than legacy .NET) and by negotiation within internal equity constraints.
Is DATEV remote-friendly?
Partially. The standard model across most roles is hybrid, listed in Workday as 'Partial option for mobile working.' A minority of roles are designated 'Predominantly on-site' or 'On-site work,' and a very small number are 'Field service' (customer-facing travel). Fully remote anywhere-in-Germany or anywhere-in-Europe arrangements are rare and are not the default. Candidates should assume regular presence at the Nuremberg campus unless the posting explicitly says otherwise.
What technology stack does DATEV use?
The internal mix leans toward enterprise Java (Spring Boot, modern Java) and legacy .NET, with Angular and TypeScript on the frontend, Microsoft Azure on the cloud side through a visible partnership for the cloud migration, SAP for internal enterprise systems, and a growing Python and Databricks footprint on the Data and AI side. Legacy surfaces include older Windows-first products still being rewritten as part of the digital transformation initiative.
How long does DATEV take to respond after an application?
Two to three weeks for the first screening response is typical. Active hiring pipelines move faster, particularly for Data and AI and Cloud roles where demand is high. Silence beyond four weeks usually indicates that the application did not advance; a polite follow-up to the recruiter listed on the posting is appropriate at that point.
Does DATEV sponsor visas for non-EU candidates?
Yes, for qualifying roles and qualifying candidates, DATEV can sponsor EU Blue Card applications and other German residence-and-work titles. The practical hurdle is almost always language and domain fit rather than visa willingness; if you clear the language bar and the role is at a seniority where Blue Card salary thresholds apply, sponsorship is workable.
What is the cooperative structure and why does it matter for candidates?
DATEV is an eingetragene Genossenschaft, a registered cooperative. Its members, primarily German Steuerberater and Wirtschaftspruefer, are also its owners. This produces a long product horizon, strong backwards-compatibility discipline, consensus-oriented decision making, and a culture that rewards stability and domain mastery over short-term growth metrics. For candidates, the practical consequence is that DATEV is an outstanding employer if you value methodical work on critical infrastructure and a modest fit if you are chasing rapid equity-driven upside.

Open Positions

DATEV currently has 39 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 39 open positions at DATEV

Related Resources

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Sources

  1. DATEV eG official careers hub —
  2. DATEV Workday job board (verified live) —
  3. DATEV Workday CXS API endpoint (verified live, 70 postings as of fetch) —
  4. DATEV eG corporate site —
  5. DATEV careers redirect page —