Working in the City of Light Jena

"Jena? Oh beautiful …" is often heard ironically from people who only know Jena from the motorway and thus mainly the view of the only partly picturesque new building district Lobeda. In today's post we want to show you that Jena is beautiful and has so much more to offer.

Bustling chatter, clinking glasses, clattering cutlery, laughter from people of all ages and backgrounds - welcome to Wagnergasse - Jena's pub mile. And so welcome to the wunschlösung! Our wunschlösung headquarters are located just a two-minute walk from the university campus - "downtown", so to speak. As you may have read in our series "The founding story of wunschlösung", Jena is the cradle of wunschlösung. Our equally beloved office in Leipzig came along a little later (2017).

But what makes Jena so appealing?

It's an insanely young and cool city with endless possibilities!

A high-tech location on the one hand, a green and vibrant student city on the other. And on top of that, a lot of history.

"In Jene lebt sichs bene" (Living in Jena is nice) was already said in an old student song. Truly! Not only Friedrich Schiller, after whom the city's university was named, taught, lived and married here. His first meeting with his later friend Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is also said to have taken place in Jena. And did you know that the bridge in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris was named after the Napoleonic battle of 1806 at Jena and Auerstedt? "Pont de Iena". Not to mention the "magic triangle" of optics, Messrs Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and Otto Schott. It was they who laid the foundation for today's position as a high-tech, industrial and, since the 1990s, IT location. You see - there was a lot going on here!

More than one in four people in Jena - by the way, only those born in Jena are called Jenensers - study at one of the two universities. Because of the extremely young and cosmopolitan flair of the city on the Saale and its location in a 15-kilometre-long valley, Jena is often compared to the university city of Heidelberg.

Around 110,000 people live and work in Jena. About a third of the population is younger than 27. The city itself is framed by green mountains with more than 100 kilometres of hiking trails. Due to its valley location, the climate is generally mild, earning Jena the reputation of "Thuringia's Tuscany". One of the reasons for this are the limestone slopes in the surrounding area, as they keep the rain off and store heat. Incidentally, this makes the city a top paragliding area with slopes for every wind condition.

Jena also offers a broad cultural mix: From electric music palaces to theatres to the philharmonic orchestra and a 6-week, top-ranked festival - the Kulturarena - there is something for everyone - and within walking distance, because everything in Jena is very close together or easy to reach by public transport.

The diversity of the Jena job market

Jena offers space for everyone, from small entrepreneurs to large corporations, from start-ups to traditional family businesses. But not only is the range of jobs on offer comprehensive, the working models themselves also offer plenty of room for individuality and personal needs. Even returnees who want to move back to Central Germany with or without their families appreciate the mix of opportunities and quality of life. Steady growth offers secure jobs. This also has to do with the fact that research and business are strongly branched out in Jena. Around 250 patents are registered here every year, and the highly qualified rate is 31 %. Between 2009 and 2019 alone, the number of employed people rose by 23 %. Incidentally, Jena is in first place in the whole of Thuringia when it comes to salaries.

The digital economy in particular remains strong. 75 % of the Jena companies surveyed revealed in a poll that they expect Jena to be at least as well or even better positioned after the Corona pandemic than before.

Jena as a place for daily life and work

Jena is super for families. Not only because it is the place in Thuringia with the highest birth rate. There is also a wide range of childcare facilities such as daycare centres, after-school care and private options. Flexible working time models and home offices are commonplace. This makes the city an interesting option not only for families but also for singles.

In general, the company culture is changing - flat hierarchies are becoming more and more the norm, and togetherness itself is also becoming a bigger and more important issue. Joint leisure or team-building activities are on the rise, as is individual training and development.

Jena itself is cosmopolitan. In the manufacturing sector, the export rate is around 70 %, so local companies are an important part of globalisation. Every year, Jena presents the i-work-Business Award, which recognises a company's intercultural diversity. It promotes a team's innovative spirit and competitiveness.

wunschlösung in Jena

You already know that wunschlösung was "born" in Jena. But what can you expect here? Currently, there are usually five of us (excluding Corona Homeoffice) in the Jena office, which is more like a shared flat than a chic, posh, ping-pong place.

In addition to a great location, the wunschbüro offers plenty of space to work and be creative, for example on our large roof terrace. We like to use it for telcos and workshops under the open sky, chilling out, playing a game of table tennis or having a barbecue. Rumour has it that there have also been karaoke performances here. But that is a company secret. We have enough room for twelve people without getting too close to each other. So we still have room for you!

Can you imagine working on cool projects in a super team in the heart of Thuringia? Then we definitely need to get to know each other. Maybe you'd rather switch to Leipzig or be flexible? We are ready in any case. You can find more information on our career page!

Would you like to know more about Jena?

Then you can get more input here:
https://www.work-in-jena.de/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDUdyXbgZAI&t=143s