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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

#401

Post by whack »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #373
School-Cotton wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only three years of experience as a software engineer. I made over $200,000 in 2016. This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France. I also have health insurance provided by my employer. Granted, I only get four weeks of paid leave, which is less than would be typical for a French person, but not by a dramatic amount. I would understand your point if the raw salaries were closer with France'…

> I made over $200,000 in 2016. This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France. This kind of braggadocio statement is why the hate for tech workers is growing. It shows a serious lack of perspective and an incredible amount of arrogance and condescension. It's also very untypical, even for a skilled tech worker in America.

This kind of statement helps people understand the challenges France is going to have in luring the top software-engineers away from America. I know it hurts people's ego when they hear someone with less experience making more than them, but put that aside and recognize that it adds to the discussion.

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

#402

Post by aaronchall »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #373
School-Cotton wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only three years of experience as a software engineer. I made over $200,000 in 2016. This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France. I also have health insurance provided by my employer. Granted, I only get four weeks of paid leave, which is less than would be typical for a French person, but not by a dramatic amount. I would understand your point if the raw salaries were closer with France'…

> I made over $200,000 in 2016. This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France. This kind of braggadocio statement is why the hate for tech workers is growing. It shows a serious lack of perspective and an incredible amount of arrogance and condescension. It's also very untypical, even for a skilled tech worker in America.

Weren't a some people pushing for more people to talk about their compensation?

If he or she works for a Google or a Yahoo, lives in a place like NYC, and has an advanced degree, it might be quite average.

I, for one, would appreciate it if more people would talk compensation.

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

#403

Post by martin1975 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #371
rublev wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have only three years of experience as a software engineer. I made over $200,000 in 2016. What do you do?

I am a software engineer at a top tech company.

Netflix in the Bay Area?

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

#404

Post by adventured »

dmode wrote: post #338
adventured wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have those non-free, taxation based, universities produced? 25 years of economic stagnation, low innovation, increasing marginalization of France as a consequential economy in the global order (they've been sinking down the list for 40 years), perpetual high unemployment, and a GDP per capita that has failed to keep up to such a dramatic degree that it needs to climb 70% to catch the US. With results like those,…

Other than GDP (which frankly benefits 5% of US population), everything is better in France. Better roads, better public transportation, high speed rails, healthcare, education. Even small and remote villages in France have high quality roads, rail connections etc. and doesn't look run down and entrenched in poverty.

GDP only benefits 5% of the population? Oh really. That doesn't sound right at all given the fact that the US median disposable income is far higher than France.

Not to mention the median wage growth is four to five times faster in the US than in France. So much for your theory.

Demographically France is about 80% white. The US median white household has an income of $73,000 as of 2016 ($108,000 with a college education) and a median net worth of nearly $150,000. Both higher than France. I use the direct demographic comparison, because it would be absurd to compare an 8th generation French family to a first or second generation Latin American family in the US (the US is 63% white by comparison, with far more immigration on a percentage basis in the last 40 years than France has seen).

The US has a superior university education system. It's not even remotely close. That has been the case globally since WW2. The rest of the world has been trying to catch up and copy what the US accomplished with its universities, for decades. The top 50 US universities put France to shame.

The US has a far lower unemployment rate. The US is a high innovation economy, France is a low innovation economy, which you can witness across nearly every economic area in comparing the US to France. The US is superior to France in: manufacturing, agriculture, aerospace, software, Internet broadly, mobile, medtech, biotech & pharma, and energy. The US has a far more dynamic small business economy than France does, with a much more liberal entrepreneur culture. The US has less air pollution than France; NYC has dramatically cleaner air than Paris.

Per the OECD better life index, the bottom 10% in the US are far better off than the bottom 10% in France. The US poverty line is also much higher than it is in France.

Better infrastructure in France? Eurozone spending on infrastructure per dollar of GDP, is now below that of the US, and that's really saying something because the US level is far too low. How long do you suppose France can continue to maintain what it does have, with such persistently low wage growth, such persistently low GDP growth, such high taxes and high regulation?

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

#405

Post by rubber_duck »

biztos wrote: post #395
rubber_duck wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 a…

I don't live in France but I do feel qualified to comment on the general comparison, being a US software guy in Europe. First, things like health care and free university are a huge deal if you plan to stay past your 30's. Consider being able to take a couple years to try a business without freaking out about health insurance. Consider being able to go get a PhD in some interesting subject without having to get a ful…

I'm not trying to compare US and EU because I haven't lived in US, I'm just talking about France in the context of EU (although after Brexit things are a bit different). And I'm mostly asking this stuff as a counter point - I'm not making a definitive statement - again I've only looked in to France superficially before when I was looking for a country to move to - maybe I was wrong - but the arguments he presented don't appeal to me at all.

I feel like there are countries with better social security (and seemingly more politically stable than France, again this is just the stuff I pick up from the media) and better pay range (at least that was the case last time I was looking where to move ~2 years ago).

And most importantly - the language barrier - programmers have to speak English so English speaking countries don't have this problem.

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

#407

Post by biztos »

tomp wrote: post #353
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.

At least in my experience, there was a shift around the late 90's at US corporations away from having a set number of no-questions-asked paid sick days (which often went unused) plus a fixed amount of vacation (which you were strongly encouraged to use); to having a fixed number of "Personal Time Off" days (PTO) accruing every month, and anything you did other than work used them up.

This, predictably enough, had the effect of people coming to work sick, because if you took the day off you'd lose a vacation day.

Now it seems the new trend is to have no specific number of free days, but leave it up to the employee to take however many days off he/she feels are necessary. Then it's up to their manager to deal with it if they take "too many."

This lets you tell people they can take vacations, while not carrying any liability to pay them for the unused vacation if they quit or are laid off / fired.

The downside is that there is no longer any incentive to take any specific amount of vacation (after all, it's not accrued and can't expire). So if you're really busy, maybe you'll never take more than a couple days at a time.

The upside would seem to be that if you're a top performer and manage your time very well and have a cool manager, you can potentially take a LOT of time off without violating any company policy. I have however not heard any stories of this being done.

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

#408

Post by user5994461 »

Igpoawsh wrote: post #299
jchampem wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, rents in London are pretty outrageous if you don't want something at the far end of a Tube line...

I still expect to be better off there. I rent a 1BR place in Paris for 850 EUR, and I expect to find something comparable in London for 1500 GBP. That means that the flat in London costs about 800 EUR more, which is less than the salary increase I'll be making.

For your information

65 k€ = 3358 € per months (on "12 mois") after all taxes, if single living alone.

85 k£ = 4712 £ per month, after all taxes.

Also, 65 k€ is a fairly good end of career in France whereas 85 k£ is a good middle experience in London (and you can get bonus, pension and perks on top).

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

#409

Post by gunnihinn »

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.

I moved to France in 2007 and didn't speak the language, to do a math degree. It was fine. The first two years were rough, but after that I had no problems, and by the time I left in 2013 people regularly thought I was a native speaker.

The math/tech background helped a lot in the beginning. The texts there are more structured than normal, so you can get functional quickly without being conversational.

Moving there is the best thing that happened to me. Don't let the language discourage you from going anywhere. You'll struggle, and overcome.

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

#410

Post by bqlou »

Trying to add my piece of advice here with some interesting readings... I'm French, not a parisian (yes, we do exist), working in south of France. So for my (strictly) personal point of view, I hope to never work in Paris as this is a "too intense" city (this is just my way of life). But, creating a startup there is almost mandatory : lot of VC living there, important infrastructures ( https://stationf.co/ for example, and many others).

As many people said it, administration is hell (but it's getting better over years, thanks you www). So to avoid your hr, legal, financial stuff, take an accountant so you can do your job... Maybe it's 200€/m, but 200/m is like what ? a 2 days budget/month ? trust me, you don't want to waste your time on this.

On the tax part, yes, there are a lot, and it's a better move for a french student to move to the US than an american student to move to France. Why? We don't have a 100k student credit to pay for (Very good public schools, and when I say public, it's between 500€ and 2500€ / yr). But more and more, administrations and institutions help startup founders financially. Maybe you should look for someone to take care of public grants (even if they take a commission on it) so you don't have to take care of this? Health insurance included, etc. It's a lot in the end but... meh, we always need a reason to whine you know.

On the language part, yep. We are terrible. But in all the industries around my work, english is mandatory. In my comp, requirements are in english, project management tools are in english, etc. It's simple, it's mandatory to work in english in our techy fields, so we can't avoid that. But yes, going to the bakery and speaking in english might be hard first. But once you know how to pronounce "Croissant", you'll be okay.

Oh, and we have good food (but haven't found a good beer (yet) :).

Sincirely hope you will be more than pleased if you plan to come to France though...

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