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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

#561

Post by seszett »

School-Cotton wrote: post #346
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 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'…

> This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France.

Plenty of people make more than they do though. These are not especially high-paying positions, they're not even the highest paying government positions.

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

#562

Post by erowtom »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #558
erowtom wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update : Thanks for the feedbacks ! 1st update: Included mobile phone + Internet 2nd update: Huge update, completly forgot about one tax on the salary.. ----------------------- 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 w…

Thank you for this very well explained post with all details. I love stuff like this, 0 obfuscation, straight to the point. So, if you get approximately like 30k free every year, how much time would it take you to buy your own flat and car?

Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it.

Great question.

For a flat, in Paris, for a 50m2, the price greatly vary between 300K (with a bunch of work to do) to 700K and more (I don't know very well the market, I can't give you much details). Right now, the loan interest are very interesting and I could buy immediately something (With a 25K contribution and pay for it for the next 20 / 30 years depending on the rate).

Since I don't own a car, I think you have for all prices. You can get a second hand for 10-25K, and a first hand for 18K - 30K (And more obviously)

Again, the 30K free at the end of the year are without all the "fun" part, with the strict bare minimum. I didn't included bars, friends, travels etc...), unfortunately I don't have 30K after all of that :P

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

#563

Post by user5994461 »

vmarsy wrote: post #556
cdavid wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which number is hidden ? Certainly not proportion of people working outside France (e.g. it took me 2 mins to find the one from my own former school, ~25 %). I am dubious because as mentioned by hiq above, you would need to wait much more than 2 years to figure out who are the "best". Another reason I am dubious is that working in France or at least in a French company is still the best way to climb the hierarchy fas…

> working in France or at least in a French company is still the best way to climb the hierarchy fast when you're coming from X/Central Paris/ Mines de Paris/Telecom/etc... For those in those French "Ivy league" it makes sense to stay in a non-meritocracy / credentials based company then, but for all other engineering schools, it's a better deal to get a 6 figures salary job in the US, where it's much closer to a mer…

Agree, it makes sense for the ones who are from these schools AND have family/friend leverage to get right into a position of power they shouldn't get, out of school or soon. They guys definitely stay in France.

However, if you're from these schools but have nothing except your hard work to sell, you're better off in UK/USA (and your alumni network definitely extends there)... but you're likely a Parisian with friends/family/housing in Paris, so there are strong incentives to stay in the place you already are. Your school name alone will afford you a career decent enough for little effort.

For someone from any other school who ain't Parisian, there is no incentive to emigrate to Paris. The opportunities are much better in the UK/USA to the point of insanity, and it may even be easier logistically (it was for me).

For an European. Why the hell would he go to Paris? It's not even worth if for French people who ain't already in Paris.

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

#564

Post by user5994461 »

julio83 wrote: post #525
di4na wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not find a quote because the numbers are hidden. But i am in an engineering school, i am in the top 10%, and it is true. There was even a note from the ministry this year asking engineering school to stop the mandatory semester in a foreign university for all engineering student, to try to reduce the drain.

Well I am french, top 1 and it's false... Sorry guy just open your eyes and go to the dynamic part of the french society.

Thank you for saying that. I am top 1 too, we're meant to work together =)

How much does the dynamic part of the French society offered you for you work?

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

#565

Post by user5994461 »

jfbus wrote: post #523
chrstphrhrt wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with a number of folks from France in Montreal and they all say the same kinds of things. I had chalked it up to some kind of national self-deprecation that is the pride and birthright of true French people :)

So you spoke only to French people having left the country, who, obviously, do not regret having left, but to no one happy to have stayed...

Does it really matter what we've done? We're both just rationalizing our positions ;)

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

#566

Post by K0SM0S »

pzh wrote: post #505
mgbmtl wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some advocates of code "expressiveness" would like (or perhaps dread) a word with your lead... ;)

Joke aside, for anyone curious: we use such i, j variables for abstract logic like a counter (e.g. i=0 at the beginning of a loop, and gets incremented by 1 each time the loop runs), or booleans maybe (e.g. P=0 or 1, true or false). But generally it is considered good practice to give names to variables that are self-explanatory (e.g. studentName or vehicle_age) for readability and ease of understanding. Even counters and booleans should be significant when possible (e.g. "hasResponded" or "day_num").

On topic, I think english or not doesn't matter theoretically. Its cultural and indeed 80% of computing/code happens in english on earth (no source, waddayathink!). What matters imho is that semantics are correct (both human and machine language...) and reasonably meaningful to a collaborator.

To anybody wanting to know better: read open-source code. Best school there is, actual practice.

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

#567

Post by jaymzcampbell »

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.

I live in Harrow in a nice one bedroom for £995. It's in Zone 5 which is far out, but the Metropolitan line has fast trains that go straight to Zone 2 in the morning so you can be in Liverpool Street in around 40 minutes.

That said, if you're thinking of dropping £1500 on a 1 bed you'll have no problem IMO. I was paying £1400 for a 2 bedroom with garden and huge living room in Leytonstone only a few months back. As long as you're not planning on living in Mayfair or Kensington that's a nice budget to work with.

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

#568

Post by School-Cotton »

0xfaded wrote: post #135
thibaut_barrere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interim CTO who helped a number of clients find good hires, I can say I'm definitely under the impression that a large part of grandes ecoles talents is siphoned every year by FB, Google, MS and the likes (which makes it harder for new startups to hire).

I work at a startup and my cash comp is inline with cash at Google et all. The expected value of equity (read: last valuation prices) is also in line but obviously illiquid. I got ripped off at the first two startups I worked for but learned my lessons. Don't be busy, create obvious value along the actual company line. You're most likely not working for the founders, it's really the stakeholders and at least some of…

Do you work in France?

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

#569

Post by geodel »

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).

I find it believable and surprising at the same time. Believable because despite what everyone claim, lot of people put money on top of everything else and they will head to where they are welcome to make more money.

Surprising because if a first world nation with high quality life in so many ways faces this problem what about the rest of the world.

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

#570

Post by user5994461 »

julio83 wrote: post #555
user5994461 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) criteo (which is big nowadays, that's an ad company somewhat competing with Google) Everything else is second tiers.

Sigfox etc.

Yes. I hesitated to put Sigfox.

The thing is, it's in Toulouse (a major French city). That might be the only good place[1] in a 100 miles radius.

I find it incredibly risky to play all hopes on a single company with zero backup plan. (I've worked in France, I've seen how bad it gets when you loose your job).

[1] I have higher standards than the average Frenchie, just like anyone who's worked at top web and financial companies.

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