Simon Janssen did his undergrad studies at the Leibniz University of Hannover. In 2006 he came to the University of Zurich were he obtained his Ph.D. in 2011. During his Ph.D. he spent 7 month at the Copenhagen Business School. In 2012 Simon Janssen spent a year as post-doctoral research fellow at the Industrial Relation Section of the Princeton University, and one year as a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Business in Stanford. He is currently a post-doc at the University of Zurich. His main research interests are labor economics, personnel economics, and economics of education.

He joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in January 2014.