Learn (some) German. Admittedly not an engineering skill - but it will be greatly appreciated by your German colleagues. Background: Dutch engineer who lived in Germany for 3 years, and worked for one of their largest engineering orgs.
Thanks for the tip. I've enrolled in an A1 class with Goethe Institute starting in April. In your opinion, how difficult would it be to rent or potentially own a home on a single engineering salary? Looking at prices on https://www.immobilienscout24.de/, it does not seem possible after accounting for taxes. A salary of 60k ends up being about 3.2k net per month. If renting a home takes 2k of that, I may need to reconsider my country of choice.
It’s 20+ years since I lived in Germany (Berlin). At the time it was pretty easy to rent a high quality property for a reasonable price. I know a lot has changed since then, and the “global housing crisis” is also affecting Germany. Sorry can’t give you more details than that.
I am confident my language skills advice still applies.