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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

#501

Post by xenadu02 »

tornadoboy55 wrote: post #450
ensignavenger wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part where he said he had health insurance paid for by his employer?

.. which is usually capped. So you are covered for minor incidents, but anything above 200k (or whatever the cap is) will completely fuck you up. Because anything that will have that much cost will also be something serious enough to incapacitate you for a long time and leave you without income. EU healthcare usually doesn't have cap, nor a deductible of thousands of dollars.

That's not true. Obamacare eliminated lifetime caps. Small and medium size companies often had $1 million lifetime caps but large companies have negotiating power and typically had no pre-existing condition exclusion periods and no lifetime caps (or something insane like $10 million). Under Obamacare all US health insurance plans have no lifetime caps and no pre-existing condition exclusions.

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

#502

Post by xenadu02 »

sulam wrote: post #375
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?

If s/he works for a public company, this is totally in line with total compensation at that experience level after you factor in stock. There are many places where you can get this level of comp. Of course, your stock package has to be worth something -- this person is almost certainly not getting over $200K in base salary alone, and if they are I would echo your question -- "what do you do?" -- and add another -- "w…

Yes indeed; for senior engineers base salary approaches $200k, excluding bonuses and RSUs/options. RSUs are in the $50-$200k/year range depending on many factors. The general expectation is a top-up at least 50% of signing RSUs per year each year, so as the vesting periods stack up you can end up earning more in stock in years 4+ than in salary.

YMMV on all this. A new college grad isn't going to get that kind of deal in most cases. It also helps to interview and get multiple offers. Once hired you're typically expected to work hard and demonstrate the value you add to the business.

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

#503

Post by grzm »

narrowrail wrote: post #500
MAGAanon wrote: post #496

FWIW, the US has Trump as President and he's about to Make America Great Again. So... all this debt/gdp ratio talk is just nonsense.

We don't need novelty accounts that regurgitate slogans and add nothing to the discussion on HN (whether this is sarcasm or not).

"Novelty account" is an apt description. It's hard to judge these things without numbers, but have you noticed an increase in accounts of this type? Perhaps the past month or two?

Edit to add: To be clear, I'm referring to single-use or single-topic accounts in general.

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

#504

Post by hayd »

guitarbill wrote: post #492
noplay wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free university is a big deal if you move your family.

There are some (significant?) drawbacks to this. Although English fees are outrageous now, 8 years ago here's the differences I observed between English and German university. Because it's free, the first year has to be brutal to weed out % the huge number of applicants. Lecture halls are overcrowded, especially for popular courses. If you want a seat, you need to get there 10 minutes early. The amount of 1:1 with st…

I thought German's also cram in 4 terms every year rather than 2 and a bit in the UK? It seem like Germans who were doing 4 years had covered more ground than a bachelors + 2 years of MSc in the UK. Perhaps that's not the case across all courses/universities, but seemed to be the case from my experience with Mathematics Erasmus students (in both directions) and German PhD students.

Seems to me like the German system is very high quality, and that the UK let too many weak candidates in to University and so the first year (and every year) is getting easier to compensate...

I remember that this was the case with Scottish students (as Advanced Highers did not cover as much as A-levels) so they had to work much harder in their first year. Scottish friends seemed to be under the impression that the first year in Scottish Universities was much easier than UK equivalents...

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

#505

Post by pzh »

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…

> If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms?

That's why my startup uses language-neutral variable names like i, j, k and x, y, z.

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

#506

Post by hiq »

user5994461 wrote: post #447
vmarsy wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People mention the lack of VC, infrastructure, tax or other issues, but to me the biggest problem is the lack of talent. I would say that in terms of business skills, there's a surplus of "salesmen" type of founders, but technical founders are missing. France engineers are very smart and engineering school are among the best, but unfortunately I find their curriculum still oriented towards hard engineering (civil, ae…

The French engineering talent is top notch... but you'll never see it. Go to a graduation ceremony at a top school (note: it's delayed 1-2 years after graduation) and you'll learn that the top 10% have ALL left the country, no exception. (I'm talking about the top in terms of technical abilities, entrepreneurship and/or skills that are valuable to execute , not necessarily school grades).

Given the size of most engineering programs in France and the way students are admitted into these programs, talking about some 10% top doesn't make sense, especially with the criteria that you mention and that cannot be assessed just 2 years after graduation.

Many of these students do start their careers elsewhere, partly due to the way the curriculum is planned (which leads many of them to finish their studies abroad). If you do look for them for your company/startup you'll be able to see them, although you could have to dig a bit deeper due to the small size of these programs (advertising in one specific French university does not have the same impact as in the UK/US and most other countries in the world).

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

#507

Post by weberc2 »

ergothus wrote: post #437
EduardoBautista wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Continuity of insurance is an issue. My wife currently requires a fairly expensive drug (thousand+ per dose), and gets 1-3 months supply at a time. With insurance, it's quite affordable. (separate rant) Every time I switch employers, or my employers switch insurance, it begins a long process of getting the right info (the insurance always contracts out specialty drugs), then getting that info to the doctors office (D…

The question is whether issues like these are likely for the individual applicant and whether they're worth dropping salary from $120K to $50K or whathaveyou.

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

#508

Post by [deleted] »

rublev wrote: post #368
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 have only three years of experience as a software engineer. I made over $200,000 in 2016. What do you do?

[deleted]

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

#509

Post by bru »

adventured wrote: post #418
wott wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As opposed to Sweden, Germany, or the UK, which have all produced superior results the last few decades with different approaches from that of France. What???

Sweden, Germany and the UK have approached economic growth far differently than what France has, and have produced superior results to that of France. The question was, why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results? See for example: Sweden's economic deregulation and lowering of taxes, which prompted their significant economic boom. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/int…

I'm sorry but I believe most of that is FUD, which some prominents economists have been calling out, e.g. this short Krugman piece: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/about-that-frenc... The sad thing is that this FUD itself has a impact, and is therefore self-fulfilling to some extent.

"Superior results" are, to be fair, quite debatable:

- UK got an edge via fiscal dumping, hurting its neighbours. This is also what Ireland is doing now, which really gives "good results", but is hurting all other EU countries (Luxembourg some the same, some other countries as well).

- Germany has a lower unemployment rate, but with way more precarious working conditions for many workers.

- I really don't know about Sweden so I won't speak about it, but I'm going to read the piece you linked, it looks interesting.

I could also say that France has superior results, if you look at other metrics:

- productivity per hour: the USA is #1 with a very very small edge over Germany and France, both #2. The UK, Japan are far behind

- Gini coefficient! This one is very dear to me. We're doing pretty well, and our evolution over 10 years has been better than most of our neighbours[1]

I believe that the biggest problem we're facing nowadays (and have been facing for a couple decades) is that increased globalisation allows companies to go "shopping" for their fiscal system, and put countries in competition. This creates a drive to get lower tax rates than your neighbours, which is a bad spiral and in the end deeply hurts countries (however, if you happen to disagree with that, then I'm afraid we have fundamentally different world view, and I don't really have the energy or will to debate if further, sorry). Ireland is a prime example of this.

> why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results?

My goal is not for it to be copied a bit everywhere but, really, for it to be considered with fairness, and not just shunned and mocked because of propaganda and preconceptions.

I actually have a in mind couple great pieces I'd like to share on those topics; unfortunately they're in French. I'll look a bit around for potential translations.

1: some data: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language...

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

#510

Post by erowtom »

renaudg wrote: post #425

Regarding French salaries again : yes they are lower than elsewhere but with some exceptions, French employers are not the problem : they do pay the same price for you as in other European countries, more or less ! The difference is that your average engineer in France costs them around 1.5-2.5 times the total take home pay, because of high, compulsory labor taxes. In exchange, employees get as standard : * a top not…

Update : Thanks for the feedbacks !

1st update: Included mobile phone + Internet

2nd update: Huge update, completly forgot about one tax on the salary..

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I'm French, I can give you some more details.

I'm a full stack Ruby Developer, and I work at https://www.talent.io, the first recruitment platform for developers in Europe. (If you're looking to relocate in Paris, London or Berlin, you know where to look. )

I usually don't comment a lot on HN, but if it can gives people the desire to move in France / Europe to work, this is great for my country / continent.

I'm gonna speak with raw cold numbers, for me it speaks more than some random "headlines".

Here in Paris, developers are paid between 40K and 90K (there are developers that are far better paid - and unfortunately far less paid-), but this is a large "common" fork I'm giving to you. Those numbers are raw, meaning that you have to remove the tax. Here my own numbers, hoping it can help you imaginate with your current own situation.

Note : I'm living with my GF, so I'm gonna divide all "common" expenses. We have equivalent salaries.

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Salary + flat

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My raw income last year was appx 45K euros. When you remove the first tax each month, I have 34600 left. I paid appx 2600 to the state in taxes, only for the salary. It's a quite good salary for a junior / mid developer here. (22 years old, 2 years of professionnal experiences in Fullstack Ruby / Rails developer). In Paris, for a 35m2 (365 ft2) with furnitures (meaning full equiped, from the Kitchen to the Bed to the sofa and desks), I paid 1K2 / month, so 14 400 for a year. (Living with my GF, so dividing it by 2 : 650 euros / month / person, so 7800 euros / year / person) You have to add the taxes, which was approximately a half month of rent : 650 (dividing by 2: 325 euros). So in total, I paid to the state for my flate + income taxes 5500 euros. Total net income : 32000 euros / year

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Common expenses - Insurances - Transportations - Food

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* Healthcare insurance ~ 40 euros / month, the company pays half for it. (240 / year)

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This is not the best insurance ever, I could have go for a better one at greater prices. It covers for the basics. I'm young and in good health, I take care of my glasses and my dentition, so To give you an idea, I have to change my glasses every 1.5 year / 2years, the total price of my last bill was 322 euros, my glasses were full covered (with full treatment on lenses), I had to pay from my pocket 50 euros for the spectacle frame. I also had to replace a tooth because it broke at sport, on a 600 euros cost, I only paid 47 euros (going to a private clinic - not public hospital.). From a basic surgery, cost was appx 1000 euros, I didn't paid anything (public hospital) - bad note is that I waited 3 months for the surgery - it was not urgent at all -. Public healthcare in France is overbooked, but it's good.

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* House insurance ~ 20 euros / month. Nothing to say. (120 euros / year /person)

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* Transportation (Only counting public transportation, not Uber etc...)

here we have the subway, bus, bike, tramway (and soon a boat :o), it costs 75 euros / month, the company pays half for it. (450 euros / year)

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* Electricity

nothing much to say, we pay appx 70 euros / month, so 35 euros / person / month, so 420 euros / person / year I won't talk much about food, because it REALLY depends your habits, if you live alone / with a family. Here for 2, we approximately pay 600 euros / month - We love food. We could have reduced it a little, but we try to eat locally / bio, it costs much more. Per year per person, it's appx 3600 euros / person.

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* Mobile phone + internet

It's quite cheap here.

Mobile phone, unlimited phone calls in France (Even in europe I believe) + unlimited text + "unlimited" Internet (4GO / month of data 4G then caped) at "Sosh", I pay 25 euros / month (300 euros / months)

Home internet, provider is called "Orange" + television, fiber 500 MBits fully unlimited, I pay 50 euros / month (600 euros / year, 300 euros / year / person) (And it works damn well).

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total (tl;dr) : In total, last year, I earned 39500 euros, taxes deducted. I paid 3600 (food) + 450 (transportation) + 240 (health insurance) + 120 (house insurance) + 300 (mobile phone) + 300 (Home internet) + 420 (electricity) = 26570 euros net of income after all "life mandatory" stuff.

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Please please please, do note that I did NOT included all restaurants, clubs, travels, clothings and all "fun" stuff. It really depends on your lifestyle, and I don't even know how much I paid for it.

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Education

It's true, public education is almost free. It costs less than 1K euros / child / year to go to high school (I even think it's way less than that, but IDK since I went to a private school). You can even lower those costs because we do have a lot of helps from the state. When my brother went to a historian school, he paid nothing, and even more, the French state paid him 10K a year to go study (Because he was a damn good student) For my private computer science school (the "42" school of Xavier Niel is a perfect copycat of mine, but free - unfortunately it did not exists at that time), I paid (my parents did) 50K, and this is only for the school (5 years, so appx 10K a year)

About the other bullet points @renaudg talked about, I don't have much to say, It's pretty self explanatory.

I hope it does help people better evaluate the "cost" of life in France, if I forgot something / you want more informations, please do not hesitate to ask :).

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