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Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

nytimes.com

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Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#201

Post by IMTDb »

systemtest wrote: post #199
pilooch wrote: post #41

I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…

The best thing is that you can get away with paying a good software developer only €2500 per month. You can get four French developers for the price of one American.

This is below France median salary. If you think you can get away with that, you either :

- Have developers that are actually not that good

- Have good developers that will realise that you are vastly underpaying them and will jump ship

Salaries in France are lower than in the US, but if you think good developers are settling for remunerations below the median salary of the country they live in, you will get a wake up call sooner or later.

Corollary: If you are a good developer in France, working for 2500 EUR / month & is looking for a raise, send me a message ;-)

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#202

Post by T-N-T »

roel_v wrote: post #133
Legogris wrote: post #86

Just sharing another experience: I am a technical manager at a small-size big data company. We opened a new office in Paris three months ago and our largest struggle by far is recruiting talent. Despite what other comments here are writing, the startup scene is booming. Station F[1] is huge. The four WeWorks are full and they are opening two more soon. Global companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Naver are g…

"our largest struggle by far is recruiting talent" So, proof of the pudding and all - how much are you paying a senior engineer? To make it easier to compare, take an hypothetical software engineer with a cs degree and 10 years of experience in mainstream technologies?

I am french and two of my friends left for the US because very large companies I won't name made them offers that are impossible to match in Europe. There is no lack of produced talents here, they just won't stay because they don't get paid their true market value.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#203

Post by Uberphallus »

oelmekki wrote: post #194
Uberphallus wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer in France, and to compare to OP of this thread: I got fired because I created a company without telling my company. So I have both views in this matter. I got fired because there was a clause of "non-concurrence", but the market focus was different, geographic focus was different, all different except for doing tech. I brought it to court, it's ongoing. Why did they do it? Because they were downsizing…

Sorry to hear about your abusive firing, wish you success. > all startups I've seen quickly moved to London or Berlin in the moment they got VC funding Are you sure this was related to the cost of employees? As pointed in the article, London is the historical tech hub in europe, so moving to London after funding can have many reasons. You're right though, having employees is really expansive. I'm afraid it's not just…

> Are you sure this was related to the cost of employees?

Not completely sure; the best case I know is of a company where one of the founders told me such thing. It is a very technically advanced and polished ride sharing app, made to solve very particular problems in this region, investors had a look at the product, at their books, and offered 2M/year for 3 years on condition of moving it to Berlin or Sofia (Bulgaria, don't ask me why).

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#204

Post by kakwa_ »

systemtest wrote: post #199
pilooch wrote: post #41

I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…

The best thing is that you can get away with paying a good software developer only €2500 per month. You can get four French developers for the price of one American.

nope.

30k a year is the salary of a junior developer after employee taxes, and it's the low end of the spectrum.

A company will at least pay 50 to 60k euros per year in total for a junior developer.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#205

Post by Uberphallus »

flaie wrote: post #186
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction, there are enough devs but the salaries are too low, so they go elsewhere like I did. I am not going to work 40+ hours a week or more to make 2500 euros and pay 1000 euros of rent in Paris. Whats the point? Also, Paris is a crime-ridden city that is way overpriced.

Exactly, there's a lot of cool stuff going on in Paris, but seriously it's underpaid for the price you have to pay to live there. From where I live I could work in Paris with the same commute time than I do by working in Luxembourg, but I get a better paycheck. Renting a 2 bedroom costs 700€ a month where I live, in Paris it would cost 2 to 3 times this. I don't get the "there's not enough engineering available", thi…

Confirmed. I'm far from Paris, my company proposed me to change client and relocate to Paris. Had a look at rent prices and traffic. Next thing I ask is if I'm getting some kind of salary raise, and they look at me and replied with the classic "bah, écoute...", obviously I declined.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#206

Post by jimnotgym »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45
pilooch wrote: post #41

I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…

> The truth is it is much much cheaper than in the US, and probably unmatched in Western Europe Business formation ( i.e. forming a legal entity, getting a bank account, hiring your first employee and getting paid for your first service) in France is much more expensive than in Britain, Luxembourg or Poland. And the U.S. is faster and cheaper still. That said, if you have the right connections, it can be a haven. The…

I costs £12 to register a company in the UK. Is the US cheaper than that? If you pay £100 you can get a same day registration, is the US quicker than that?

https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-c...

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#207

Post by walshemj »

repsilat wrote: post #61
walshemj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean fired for cause or redundancies over a certain size - the USA has that procedure as well (WARN Act) you know.

Holy excluded middle, Batman :-). Most of the US[1] are in "at will" employment states, in which individuals can be fired without cause. This is probably what the grandparent was comparing France's law to. The WARN act probably doesn't bear a great deal on the US's place as a "startup nation"... 1: by area, population or state count, including California but excluding New York

I think your missing the point you can get fired for gross misconduct quickly even in states in the EU with stronger employment laws.

If at will makes it so easy why are US employers including startups terrified of firing people - look at all this obsession with not making a bad hire if it was truly easy to fire this would not be the case.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#208

Post by walshemj »

acou_nPlusOne_t wrote: post #68
Rjevski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No change - if anything, it's even worse, as the education requirement now means everyone has a degree (even though they might not have the passion nor the actual skill for it), and since the requirement no longer works as a filter for good candidates (I'd argue it never really worked, but now it's even worse) they are now requiring education and experience (for the same pay an intern would get in the UK). Even assum…

So how do new people get in? Vitamin F, for family and relations. If you can go through a company and alot of people have the same name, you strt to grasp how such systems work. It really limits how far and where you can go to whoever your parents and family had connections to.

Helps to goto ENA :-) though the ENA students we had at BT where uniformly great

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#209

Post by tigershark »

jimnotgym wrote: post #206
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is it is much much cheaper than in the US, and probably unmatched in Western Europe Business formation ( i.e. forming a legal entity, getting a bank account, hiring your first employee and getting paid for your first service) in France is much more expensive than in Britain, Luxembourg or Poland. And the U.S. is faster and cheaper still. That said, if you have the right connections, it can be a haven. The…

I costs £12 to register a company in the UK. Is the US cheaper than that? If you pay £100 you can get a same day registration, is the US quicker than that? https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-c...

You don’t need to pay 100£ for a fast turnout, my company was registered in 3-4 hours paying 12£..

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#210

Post by mandor »

IMTDb wrote: post #201
systemtest wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing is that you can get away with paying a good software developer only €2500 per month. You can get four French developers for the price of one American.

This is below France median salary. If you think you can get away with that, you either : - Have developers that are actually not that good - Have good developers that will realise that you are vastly underpaying them and will jump ship Salaries in France are lower than in the US, but if you think good developers are settling for remunerations below the median salary of the country they live in, you will get a wake u…

This is the "net" of a senior researcher (very competitve position, people are about 35-40 year old, about 10-15 years after a good PhD) in public institutions (see http://www.emploitheque.org/grille-indiciaire-etat-Directeur...) and more than most "researchers" in public institutions (http://www.emploitheque.org/grille-indiciaire-etat-Charges-d... -- 5-10 years after a PhD).

This includes researches in CS and AI.

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