Work, German lessons and buttered pretzels - Ayushi Sharma’s life in Germany

Mondays to Fridays, Ayushi Sharma’s life revolves around zeros, ones, complex commands and logic. The 29-year-old from India works for an international logistics service provider as an IT service manager. She took a very conscious decision to pursue a job in Germany a good two years ago. She had already been living for some time in Germany, having moved from Hyderabad to Munich in 2019 to do her master’s in management. She learnt via an online network about the international graduate trainee programme offered by her current employer DB Schenker, found the conditions attractive and successfully applied for a place.  

It was no problem for her to move to Essen in North Rhine-Westphalia. “My employer supported me with lots of important to-dos - like finding a place to live, registering with the local authorities and finding a German class,” recalls Ayushi Sharma. Many companies in Germany engage relocation teams to take international professionals by the hand during all the first steps.  

Outside her world of zeros and ones, Ayushi Sharma loves to dive into new things and places: she is trying out skiing, exploring the diversity of German cuisine and travelling around Europe - ideally by train, she explains: “In Germany it is easy and safe to travel around using public transport, which is something I really appreciate. The rail network is so well developed that I do not need a car to get to work or explore the local region in my free time.”

At first she found German cuisine something of an acquired taste, especially the unfamiliar way seasoning and spices are used here. “German cuisine uses different and somewhat fewer spices than Indian cuisine does. That’s something I had to get used to. My parents tell me that I now cook really German food because I use far less hot spice than before.”  

The IT expert is vegetarian and doesn’t eat any egg-based foods. “It’s no problem to find vegetarian and vegan ingredients in supermarkets. And restaurants in Germany are also offering more and more alternatives to meat, fish and egg,” she says. She has even discovered a few classic German favourites that she likes: “I find buttered pretzels, vegan curried sausage with fries and potato pancakes with apple purée really tasty.”