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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

#351

Post by tom_mellior »

regi wrote: post #325
tom_mellior wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 38% + about 1 month of net income to pay each year as income tax.

My 35-40% figure includes the income tax and the rental tax. You must be in a crazy high bracket if you get 38% deducted every month. On my last pay slip, it's 17.5%, but I get paid around the lower end of the salary brackets I posted above.

> VAT is 22% on most products.

20%

> Gas is expensive (highways too!!!).

Maybe. I prefer spending my money on better things than a car.

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

#352

Post by EduardoBautista »

jeandejean wrote: post #273
Raphmedia wrote: post #228

As someone who lives in Montreal, that's very strange to see. We import French talent by the hundreds because they are lacking interesting tech jobs over there.

Don't get it wrong, we're not lacking interesting tech jobs at all, we're lacking interesting salaries.

Why are the salaries so much lower? Is it lack of funding or do employers just don't want to pay more?

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

#353

Post by tomp »

renaudg wrote: post #330

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…

Is "paid leave" really the best characterisation? Unless French system is radically different from e.g. UK and Slovenian (which I have experience with), that would be "paid vacation" - "leave", e.g. sick days, aren't counted as part of the vacation, and are also paid. It's my undertanding that "paid leave/time off" in the US means sick days + vacation.

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

#354

Post by noplay »

fvdessen wrote: post #134
bsaul wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech issues in France ?? I'd say a good reason not to come here is bureaucracy and taxes, but not issues with freedom of speech... Do you have some facts you'd like to share ?

If I remember correctly, You are more or less responsible for whatever appears on your website. If your users use your service for forbidden speech, then you are liable.

If you are a publisher. Youtube, twitter, etc are seen as hosting platform and it's not the same law

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

#355

Post by krzyk »

mgbmtl wrote: post #342
krzyk wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc) If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators. For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when…

In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground.

Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing:

    if (znalezione) {
       ...
    }
looks awkward.

Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code:

    zwierzęta.stream()
        .filter(z -> z.kończyny().contains(noga))
        .map(z -> z.toString())
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

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

#356

Post by jasonlotito »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #349
renaudg wrote: post #330

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…

I've never found the healthcare argument to be relevant. Software Engineers in the USA usually have generous health care plans provided by their employers. Same with vacation time.

To continue with the healthcare argument, "top-notch healthcare" is debatable. Autism support in France is not good at all. People always like to think of healthcare as a single entity, a single package. Either it's good or it's bad as a whole. The truth is, it's not.

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

#359

Post by rubber_duck »

renaudg wrote: post #330

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…

>but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare

Does it cover stuff like cosmetic dermatology, full dental plan (implants) ? I don't live in France, I lived in different EU countries and every time I needed something the "free health care" meant I had to pay participation fee and wait 6 months walking around appointments and ended up going private clinic. I basically got 0 value out it, considering I'm young and healthy I would not have to pay much for insurance, you're mostly footing the bill for the pensioners.

>free university

Which again means nothing to anyone immigrating as a skilled worker

>pension contributions,

I sincerely doubt that by the time I hit retirement age the pension system will look anything like it does now because of multiple factors (current pension funds being structured around social transfers and constant employment growth, meanwhile automation replacing a large % of workforce permanently). Again just transfer payments to old people.

>5-7 weeks paid leave and generous unemployment insurance amongst other things

So you're going to emigrate as an expert in a sector earning top ~10-1% income for unemployment benefits ?

If you're a young professional either none of the things you listed matter to you or there are better countries than in Europe by those criteria (Nordics/Switzerland).

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

#360

Post by taway_1212 »

jchampem wrote: post #128
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?

You can expect something from 50k to 70k€ (gross salary) dependending on the company and your experience. Remove 25% of that to have an idea of your net salary. (Those 25% are mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. All of those are mandatory) Expect to pay between 1 and 2 months net salary in yearly incomes taxes.

Christ, the top end of those numbers (both for gross salary and income taxes) is 3600 euros net per month, which is only 20-40% more than you get in Warsaw. Meanwhile, Paris real estate is (from what I'm hearing) extremely expensive.
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