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A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

visa.lafrenchtech.com

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Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#321

Post by otoburb »

krzyk wrote: post #206
mootothemax wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you. Not long after arriving, I accidentally got a job at a startup, and I'd been led to believe everything was done in English internally: communicatio…

> even variable names in the code, all was in English As a English-is-my-second-language person I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English. English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish), and it is much easier to share code on the net, find help on stackoverflow, etc.

>>English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish) [...]

If one were to pick Polish variable names, would the default be the neutral forms[1]? I'm sure this applies to other languages that also have forms of complex declension compared to English. Which would make more sense in Polish?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar#Nouns

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#322

Post by general_ai »

hacker_9 wrote: post #79
jlangenauer wrote: post #5

Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things. This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)

As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.

Regarding language: you'll surprise yourself. You will have passable French within 6 months or less, and excellent French within 2 years or less, but during the initial 6 months your life will be hell. Your pronunciation will never be as good as that of the natives, though, but if your grammar is all right, no one but complete assholes will mind.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#323

Post by dmode »

fancy_pantser wrote: post #293
adventured wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considerably more - that's surprising. Would you mind breaking out more exact numbers?

Just to use round numbers, here is a breakdown for a single person making $120k/yr in California at a typical tech company. Monthly gross income: $10000 Federal tax $1494 Medicare $144 Social Security $616 CA Income Tax $751 CA Disability $89 Pretax deductions: Medical $56 Dental $5 Vision $2 Monthly take-home amount: $6843 (68.4% of gross)

This sounds right

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#324

Post by CalChris »

coredog64 wrote: post #251
LunaSea wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still pick Berlin or Amsterdam over France. Maybe even Sweden or Finland because of the average English language level spoken in those countries even though the startup scene there is smaller than Paris.

France, or Paris? The joke my former (Parisian) co-worker used to tell was that he missed everything about Paris except the Parisians. I've heard nice things about Lyon: Largish city, easily accessible, and not full of Parisians.

I could say the same about San Francisco and I lived there for a couple of decades. It is insanely crowded now with Uber drivers cutting through neighborhoods obeying their GPS overlord.

As for Paris, I love Paris but then I'd have a hard time getting work done there. Being near would be enough. I worked in Milan and Geneva and would take the train into Paris for the weekend but not for work.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#325

Post by regi »

tom_mellior wrote: post #289
bankim wrote: post #82

What are salaries like for mid-senior level software engineers working in tech companies in Paris? What are the tax rates i.e pay after taxes?

> What are salaries like for mid-senior level software engineers working in tech companies in Paris? Looking at what StackOverflow's Jobs tab spits out right now, I see: software engineer Java 38k-60k; software engineer Python 40k-55k; DevOps engineer (not your idea, I guess? there's a number of these) 40k-55k; developer for 3D applications 38k-48k; ... Then there is one for a senior Java engineer for 47k-59k and rig…

38% + about 1 month of net income to pay each year as income tax. There's absolutely no visibility on retirement plan. You just know that you earn "points", with no idea what they're worth. Also, when you rent in France you have to pay a tax (similar to property tax) which, depending on the city, can be quite high (~1 month of rent/year). VAT is 22% on most products. Gas is expensive (highways too!!!). Train (TGV) is ridiculously expensive.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#327

Post by ddebernardy »

inanutshellus wrote: post #245
rfrey wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works out to 37.5% tax. I paid considerably more than that working in California when you include health insurance.

California is consistently at the top of polls ranking by taxes paid. Sooo... it's not entirely fair to extrapolate to the USA from California, despite its size. Two random results pulled from a search: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/califo... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/millionaires-consider-l...

And high rents, but then they're also among the highest earners. It's not like you can easily find a $200k+/year software dev job in Montana.

edit: s/mo/year :D

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#328

Post by raverbashing »

hacker_9 wrote: post #79
jlangenauer wrote: post #5

Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things. This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)

As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.

"5 years in school" means Nothing

You'll get better results within 1 month living in the target place

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#329

Post by kmonsen »

blibble wrote: post #143
jlangenauer wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It most certainly has not: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/09/uk-eu-citize...

have you read the first line? > Home Office says in letter that it cannot give unilateral assurances until status of Britons in other EU countries is protected

Then maybe they should not exit the union? The brits have to come with all the answer, and can expect no help being given since they are the ones breaking up the relationship.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#330

Post by renaudg »

Raw salary comparisons miss the point : you can't really compare pre-tax salaries between countries with such a completely different taxation and benefits structure.

The take home pay certainly is much, much lower in France than in the US, but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare, free university, pension contributions, 5-7 weeks paid leave and generous unemployment insurance amongst other things. It all adds up.

I'm French, working in London and I've been happy with the trade off of more pay for a thinner social safety net, but I know it would be foolish to compare wages directly. I suspect the difference is much less spectacular with everything taken into account.

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