Find the perfect Development Engineers in Munich from 15,000 CVs with the power of AI
Get Development Engineers for embedded software, mechanical product development, test automation, and prototype support. Bring in specialists who fit your stack, your process, and your delivery model, with fast and precise matching of vetted, available freelancers.
About the role
Product development Development engineers turn ideas into working products, components, and industrial systems. They define technical concepts, build prototypes, validate functions, and refine designs until the result is ready for production or integration.
Typical deliverables include:
- Technical concepts and design updates
- Prototypes and proof-of-concept builds
- Test plans, reports, and failure analyses
- Manufacturing-ready documentation
Core skills A strong development engineer works across design, analysis, and implementation. They need a solid grasp of materials, mechanics, electronics, software, or process engineering, depending on the project. Clear documentation and structured problem solving matter just as much as technical depth.
Common tools and methods include CAD, simulation, lab testing, version control, and structured debugging. In software-heavy projects, Python, C++, embedded systems, or automated test setups often play a central role.
When to hire Companies bring in a freelance development engineer when internal teams are at capacity, a special skill is missing, or a project needs focused delivery without a long ramp-up. This is common in automotive, industrial equipment, consumer hardware, medical technology, and manufacturing around Munich.
A freelancer is a good fit when you need support for a product launch, a redesign, a root-cause analysis, or a short technical rescue. Temporary reinforcement also helps when the work spans several disciplines and needs fast coordination between design, testing, and production.
What strong work looks like A good development engineer leaves behind more than a concept. You should see practical decisions, traceable changes, and results that can be tested, built, and maintained.
- Delivers clean technical documentation
- Spots risks early and proposes fixes
- Works well with product, QA, and production teams
- Translates requirements into buildable solutions
- Keeps prototypes and revisions organized
Specializations The title covers a broad field, so project scope matters. Some development engineers focus on embedded devices and firmware. Others work on mechanical design, industrial automation, simulation, or hardware-software integration.
In Munich, many clients look for people who can join established engineering teams quickly, communicate clearly in English or German, and adapt to on-site workshops, hybrid setups, or remote development work.
Hiring signals You likely need a development engineer if your team has a design gap, a testing bottleneck, or a product issue that is not moving forward. They are also useful when a concept exists but needs technical ownership before it can be handed to production or a client.
Freelance support is especially practical when the work is project-based, urgent, or tied to a specific platform, toolchain, or prototype build. Strong freelancers ask sharp questions, document decisions, and stay close to delivery instead of only theory.
Meet FRATCH Development Engineers
Reza Saljooghi
Senior Development Engineer Driver Assistance Systems (Product Owner)
Last position:
Senior Development Engineer Driver Assistance Systems (Product Owner) at BMW Group (Contracted through Advanced Engineering GmbH)
- Developed lateral-safety steering functions across two service packs, serving as Product Owner for SP-2021 and Function Developer for SP-2025
- Defined and maintained system requirements, coordinated validation and testing, and ensured seamless integration into series vehicles across 29 BMW, MINI, and Rolls-Royce models
- Drove a 62.5% reduction in Lane Keeping Assistant PPH (Problems Per Hundred) count from 9.6 (2023) to 3.6 (2025) in the US-IQS (Initial Quality Study) by enhancing function performance, contributing to a 7-position improvement in BMW’s overall brand ranking
- Managed collaboration with two main suppliers, resolving technical challenges and securing on-time milestones
- Delivered safety functions that supported multiple NCAP programs (EuroNCAP, ChinaNCAP, KoreaNCAP, JapanNCAP), with all models meeting or exceeding targets
Ambra Calà
Head of Research Group | Software-driven Ecosystems and Marketplaces
Last position:
Head of Research Group | Software-driven Ecosystems and Marketplaces at Siemens Foundational Technologies
- Leading an international technology consulting team of 10 software architects, modelers and researchers, developing and aligning team skills with Siemens goals related to software ecosystems and marketplaces
- Defined team strategy roadmap, consulting offerings and team development from scratch
- Responsible for €2M+ budget in BU consulting, pre-development and applied research projects
- Led the global Company Core Technologies program “Ecosystems and Marketplace Technologies” aiming at cross-company synergies in research and pre-development around software ecosystems evolution methods and practices
- Developed methods and tools to support holistic digital ecosystem transformation in industry
- Drove collaboration with academia with focus on emergent technologies for systems engineering and platform-based ecosystems design
- Facilitated innovation and patent workshops with cross-functional teams resulting in approximately 25 invention disclosures per year
Vasco Almeida
AI Research Intern – Generative AI
Last position:
AI Research Intern – Generative AI at BMW AG
- Designed and implemented multi-modal entertainment toolchains that combine passenger input, vehicle context, large-language models (text-to-text and speech-to-speech) and image generation models to deliver more interactive and immersive in-car experiences.
- Built and orchestrated tools for LLM-based agents, covering session management, background task execution, dynamic user interactions and persistent application state.
- Investigated multi-agent orchestration frameworks for in-car environments, evaluating communication protocols and architectural strategies for coordinated and reliable agent behavior.
Narges Dastanpour Hosseinabadi
Research Assistant
Last position:
Research Assistant at Munich University of Applied Sciences
Introduced an integrated approach for structural damage detection across concrete, steel, and glass using advanced technologies such as LiDAR and thermal imaging. Highlighted cross-material interactions to enhance diagnostics and enable predictive maintenance.
Developed an NLP-based medical note simplifier that transforms complex clinical instructions into plain, child-level English. Applied prompt engineering with Flan-T5 transformer models to extract patient-relevant actions and rephrase them into clear to-do items. Built dual Flask and Tornado backends with a printable web interface.
Martin Ratajczak
Senior LLM Research Scientist
Last position:
Senior LLM Research Scientist at BYO Inc.
- Research and develop models for chatbots, NLP and LLMs (e.g. Llama, Qwen, OpenAI)
- Enhance chatbots with RAG, in-context learning
- Supervised fine-tuning (PEFT, LoRA), Huggingface or Unsloth
- Advanced training methods: Test-time training, (transductive) active learning, reinforcement learning
- High-throughput serving with vLLM
- Apply embedding models (e.g. SentenceTransformers), similarity/vector search or vector DB or ranking (e.g. LlamaIndex, Faiss, LangChain)
- Generate and filter synthetic data, clustering
- Detect hallucinations
- Evaluate chatbot models (Rouge, BLEU, F1-Score, Recall, Precision)
- Visualization of experiments (matplotlib)
András Bognár
Test Equipment Developer
Last position:
Test Equipment Developer at Minebea Access Solutions
- Tested passenger car opening handle at system level integrating hardware, software and mechanics
- Built and provided complete test equipment for system testers using Arduino boards, Saleae Logic analyser, oscilloscope, multimeter, RLC meter, programmable power supplies and function generators
- Developed system testing concepts and constructed manual system test bench
- Supported system testers with hardware and software tools
- Products: BMW XNF, Rolls Royce, Audi eRing, JLR (Jaguar-Land-Rover)
Özgül Özenen
Mechanical Development Engineer
Last position:
Mechanical Development Engineer at DeltaVision
- Designed and developed mechanical components for space applications, considering envelope constraints, weight targets, and interface requirements
- Performed 3D CAD modelling and detailing in CATIA V5 (Part Design, Assembly Design, Drafting), including CAD and design tolerance analysis and manufacturing-oriented design
- Created norm-compliant manufacturing drawings with full GD&T definition, including fits, surface finishes, and form and position tolerances
- Conducted FEM analyses in SIMULIA for stress, contact conditions, and thermal effects under cryogenic boundary conditions
- Supported prototype build, testing campaigns, and iterative design reviews
- Developed Python scripts for engineering calculations, data processing, and automated evaluation of test and simulation results
Discover over 15,000 top freelancers
Development Engineers statistics
Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.
Experience
14 years
Position duration
1.6 years
Positions per freelancer
7
Top business areas
Product Development, Research and Development, Information Technology
Top industries
Automotive, Education, Information Technology
Certification focus areas
Quality Assurance, Human Resources, Logistics
Bachelor's degree or higher
100%
Master's degree or higher
100%
Doctorate
29%
Certifications per freelancer
2
Most common languages
English, German, Persian
Speak two or more languages
100%
Daily Rate Distribution
The chart shows how the daily rates of freelancers in this role are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows how many freelancers charge within that range. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
Average rates for Development Engineers & Seniority distribution
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
Frequently Asked Questions
Looking for clear information? Everything important about FRATCH is here
A Development Engineer turns technical requirements into a working product, component, or system. That can include concept work, design changes, prototyping, testing, and technical documentation. The exact scope depends on whether the project is mechanical, electronic, software-driven, or a mix of all three.
Look for strong problem solving, structured development work, and clear documentation. A good development engineer also understands the relevant tools and methods for the project, such as CAD, simulation, lab testing, embedded software, or version control. Just as important is the ability to work with product, quality, and production teams without losing technical detail.
Not always. A Development Engineer usually has a broader engineering focus and may work on hardware, embedded systems, mechatronics, or product design, while a software developer focuses mainly on code. In some projects the titles overlap, especially when the work includes embedded software or technical product development.
Freelance support is a strong choice when the work is tied to a specific project, a prototype, a launch, or a short technical gap in the team. It also makes sense if you need a specialist for a niche toolchain or a temporary extra pair of hands. This gives you focused delivery without committing to a long internal hiring process.
Yes, many tasks can be handled remotely, especially design work, documentation, analysis, and coordination. In Munich, some clients still prefer on-site time for lab access, hardware builds, production trials, or team workshops. The best setup is often hybrid, with clear milestones and direct communication.
Munich has a strong demand for development work in automotive, industrial technology, engineering services, electronics, and advanced manufacturing. A Development Engineer is often brought in where products are complex, regulated, or tied to physical systems. That makes the role relevant for both product companies and specialized suppliers.
Ask for examples of similar projects, the technical decisions they made, and the results they delivered. A strong development engineer can explain trade-offs clearly and show how they moved from concept to testable output. Good signs are clean documentation, realistic planning, and a practical approach to risk.
Freelancers should expect a mix of technical depth and coordination. A development engineer may need to review legacy designs, join interdisciplinary meetings, and adapt quickly to the client’s process. The best assignments are clear on ownership, tools, deliverables, and how success will be measured.
The average hourly rate for Development Engineers in Munich is 89 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 711 € based on an 8-hour working day.
Of the freelancers working as Development Engineers in Munich, 100% hold at least a Bachelor's degree, 100% hold at least a Master's degree, and 29% hold a doctorate.
On average, freelancers working as Development Engineers in Munich have 14 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 1.6 years.
The most common languages among freelancers working as Development Engineers in Munich are English (100%), German (86%), and Persian (14%).
The most common industries among freelancers working as Development Engineers in Munich are Automotive (71%), Education (57%), and Information Technology (57%).
The most common business areas among freelancers working as Development Engineers in Munich are Product Development (100%), Research and Development (100%), and Information Technology (57%).
FRATCH Development Engineers main locations
Our freelancers and interim experts are at home across the DACH region — available on-site in the major business hubs or fully remote. Choose a location to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
Berlin Hamburg 
Munich Cologne Frankfurt Stuttgart Dusseldorf Leipzig Dortmund Essen Bremen Dresden Hanover Nuremberg Request a Free Demo
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Philipp Thomaschewski
FRATCH CEO
