German for IT
The German vocabulary that software developers, DevOps engineers and security specialists actually use at work in Germany — not the dictionary German of a 1990s textbook.
Passed B2 — still lost on the morning stand-up?
Most German textbooks teach you to order coffee and describe your weekend. None of them teach you what a colleague means by “Ich hab den Branch schon gemergt, aber die Pipeline ist rot.” German IT speech mixes English loanwords with native German terms in ways no dictionary captures — and getting the wrong side of the split is what makes new hires sound translated.
Say Behälter for “container” and you'll get blank looks; say Container and you sound like everyone else on the team. This course teaches that instinct, one card at a time.
Loanword vs. native term — at a glance
| Concept | Textbook German | What developers say |
|---|---|---|
| Container | Behälter | Container |
| Branch | Zweig | Branch |
| Logging | Protokollierung | Logging |
| Interface (API) | Schnittstelle | Schnittstelle / API |
| Vulnerability | Sicherheitslücke | Sicherheitslücke / Vulnerability |
How our IT-German flashcards work
Every entry is a spaced-repetition flashcard with three parts.
The headword
The exact form a developer would actually say or write — the one your German colleagues default to in a real stand-up.
An example sentence
Drawn from a real work context — a stand-up, a ticket, a code review — so you learn the word where you'll meet it.
Meaning & usage note
Including the register split: which form is written (Protokollierung) versus spoken (Logging).
You rate yourself on each card, and spaced repetition brings the hard ones back more often — the same algorithm that powers Anki.
Vocabulary curated from real German workplaces
Every word in this course is hand-picked from living sources: real stand-ups, pull-request comments, Slack threads, ticket descriptions and engineering blogs from German tech teams. We add the highest-frequency vocabulary first, and continuously extend the course as the language of German IT evolves — new tools, new methodologies, new loanwords. What you practice today reflects how developers in Berlin and Munich actually speak this month, not what a textbook captured a decade ago.
Practice IT German vocabulary — free, no sign-up
Four areas of working IT German. Try a few cards from each module right here.
IT fundamentals
Files, folders, applications, operating systems — the words that show up in every ticket and every screen-share. Start here for the everyday baseline.
10 exercises on this rule · about 5 min
Software development
Source code, libraries, version control. This is where loanwords cluster: Branch, Commit, Merge, Repository — German developers say them in English, and so should you.
10 exercises on this rule · about 5 min
Databases & networking
Datenbank, Tabelle, Abfrage on the native side; Port, Load Balancer, Cache on the loanword side. Getting the mix right is the difference between sounding fluent and sounding translated.
10 exercises on this rule · about 5 min
DevOps & security
Container, Deployment, Secret, Vault — cloud-native German leans on English. But security writing keeps a formal German vocabulary too: Sicherheitslücke, Verschlüsselung, Berechtigung. Learn both registers.
10 exercises on this rule · about 5 min
Frequently asked questions about German for IT
Do I need German to work in tech in Germany?
Many German tech teams in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg work in English, but day-to-day life — stand-ups, ticket descriptions, code-review comments, HR paperwork and lunch-table conversation — is often in German. Even on an English-first team, understanding the German your colleagues default to makes you faster and more included. Outside the big-city startup bubble, B1–B2 German unlocks the majority of IT roles. This course focuses on exactly that working vocabulary.
What German level (A1, A2, B1, B2) do I need for an IT job in Germany?
Most employers ask for B1 or B2 German for non-customer-facing IT roles, and B2–C1 for senior, customer-facing or regulated positions (automotive, healthcare IT, fintech). English-first startups in Berlin and Munich sometimes hire at A2–B1, but career progression and the wider Mittelstand market reward B2. This course is vocabulary-focused, so it pairs with any A2–B2 grammar foundation and accelerates the transition from textbook German to the German your colleagues actually speak.
Should I learn the German word or the English loanword?
Both — but you have to know which one real developers say. German IT speech is full of English loanwords (Branch, Commit, Container, Deployment, Cache) that you should use as-is, while some concepts keep their German form (Schnittstelle for interface/API, Abfrage for query, Ausnahme for exception). Each flashcard teaches the form a developer would actually use in a Berlin or Munich stand-up, and flags the alternative form you'll meet in written documentation.
Is this German for IT course for beginners?
It's vocabulary-focused, so it pairs best with at least basic German (A1–A2) for sentence structure. But the cards stand on their own: each one shows the word, an example sentence from a real work context, and the meaning. You can start building your IT-German word bank before you're fluent in grammar — in fact, learning vocabulary alongside grammar is faster than waiting.
How long does it take to learn German IT vocabulary?
With spaced repetition, most learners cover the core 200 IT-specific words in 4–6 weeks of 10-minute daily sessions, and reach a comfortable working vocabulary (≈500 words across all four modules) over 3–6 months. The modules are designed to be drilled in any order — pick the area closest to your role (developer, DevOps engineer, DBA, security engineer) and start there.
What topics does German for IT cover?
Four modules: IT fundamentals (files, folders, applications, operating systems), software development (source code, libraries, version control, branches and commits), databases and networking (databases, tables, queries, ports, load balancers, cache), and DevOps and security (containers, deployment, logging, secrets, vulnerabilities, encryption). More profession-specific vocabulary courses are on the way.
Is German for IT free?
Yes — Kasus is in open beta, and every flashcard, sample sentence and module is fully free, with no sign-up required. Creating a free account adds spaced-repetition scheduling so the words you struggle with come back more often, and tracks your progress across the four modules.
How do I prepare for an IT job interview in German?
A German IT job interview (Vorstellungsgespräch) usually mixes a German conversation about you — your background, motivation and a few HR questions about your Berufserfahrung (experience) and Stärken und Schwächen (strengths and weaknesses) — with a technical discussion where English loanwords dominate (Branch, Deployment, Bug, Code Review, Pull Request). Most interviewers address you with the formal Sie. The four modules here cover the technical half of that conversation — the vocabulary you'll need to talk through past projects and answer architecture questions — so you can focus your prep on rehearsing the personal, HR-facing answers in German.
What are the German words for IT job titles?
Common German IT job titles include Softwareentwickler/in (software developer), Fachinformatiker/in (the German vocational-trained IT role), IT-Spezialist/in (IT specialist), Systemadministrator/in (sysadmin), DevOps-Engineer and IT-Sicherheitsexperte/in (security specialist). Many job ads (Stellenangebote) keep English titles too — Frontend Developer, Site Reliability Engineer, Security Engineer — so on platforms like StepStone and LinkedIn you'll see both forms side by side. Recognising the German variants helps you search and filter IT job listings in Germany and understand where a role sits on a team.
Build your German IT vocabulary
German for IT is the first of a growing set of profession-specific vocabulary courses. Fully free during our open beta — sign up to track your progress across modules and let the algorithm surface more practice where you struggle.