French Developers can earn double in Silicon Valley

http://www.rudebaguette.com/2014/09/02/french-developers-make-50-less-france-silicon-valley/

by LiamBoogar • 12 years ago

33 71 12 years ago

fmsf2• 12 years ago

Also in the UK, under the London bubble salaries are increasing rapidly, a £50k is starting to be a very low salary for skilled engineers.

tomp• 12 years ago

Really? Although I rarely see salaries advertised in job ads, and rarely hear from programmers how much they're paid, I got the feeling that you could get about 40K as a non-junior engineer (about 50K in finance).

gambiting• 12 years ago

I also wish someone sent the video games industry a memo about this as well :P 50k is something a senior would make.

timruffles• 12 years ago

55k is average for Ruby in London now: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/default.aspx?page=1&sortby=0&or...

I'd say £70k+ for senior. Contract rates are £450+, so ~£100k a year.

collyw• 12 years ago

£50K doesn't sound like a lot for London. Its an expensive place to live.

michaelt• 12 years ago

Do you have a source for this, that I can show to my boss? :)

fmsf2• 12 years ago

HN did a pool last year "full time engineer in the uk salary" try searching for it. You will see that the average is 45-50k.

alphadevx• 12 years ago

Any of these comparisons between countries and cities have to take into account cost of living (rent, childcare, food, transport, insurance etc.). High salaries in a region are often required to cover high costs to live there.

mjnaus• 12 years ago

If they're able to speak English that is :)

dkarapetyan• 12 years ago

Any developer can earn double in silicon valley, especially in san francisco. Being french has nothing to do with it.

VeejayRampay2• 12 years ago

A few things that should be noted because articles like these tend to focus on the mere disparity in earnings:

1) In France, your salary is usually lower because your employer has to pay a lot of taxes. So does the employee.

2) Those taxes are in turn used for a lot of things that make the French model (and those of Sweden, Denmark, etc.) a nice place to live like next-to-free education, health care, transportation infrastructure, public libraries and hospitals, universities, so called "Grandes Écoles".

I'm not saying the system isn't currently broken or that it even works but in the end, it is really not as simple as X in France and 2X in the Silicon Valley cause in the end, you have to shell out for your health insurance, your education and a lot of different services that are just part of the French package when you live in the USA.

A good illustration of this is the price I paid to go to one of the best universities around Paris: the equivalent of $250 a YEAR.

For that kind of quality, I would have easily paid something like $5000 or more in the States.

So really, both systems have their pros and cons, it's really way more nuanced than that.

baby• 12 years ago

5000$

way more, and you have to buy textbooks as well.

p4bl0• 12 years ago

You forgot to add the unemployment allowance and paid retirement, which are a huge benefit. In particular in the tech scene, the unemployment allowance means that you can be paid up to 80% of your previous salary for almost two years (… way to seed startups!).

All this plus what parent poster mentioned are what we call the "deferred salary", it's hard to evaluate precisely but in now way it's negligible.

Also I don't know in which Parisian university you went, but I bet that it would be a lot more than $5000/year to get an equivalent "service" in the US.

S4M5• 12 years ago

You need to have been fired for that - you won't get the unemployment benefits if you quit your job. On the other hand, unemployment can be a cushion for employees of a failed startup.

I don't know if founders of failed startups can get the unemployment though.

VeejayRampay2• 12 years ago

Université Orsay Paris-Sud XI, ranked as the best university in France in the Shanghai rankings in 2011 (doesn't mean it's an absolute best, but still somewhat of an indicator). So yeah, rather top shelf.

Kurtz79• 12 years ago

I don´t know in France, but in Spain unemployment benefits have quite a few catches:

- You must be fired (if you just walk out you are not entitled).

- There is an absolute cap, regardless of your previous salary (little more than 1000 EUR)

- You "earn" days of unemployment as you work (one day for each 3/4 days of work, I don´t remember exactly) up to two years.

I can´t say I disagree with any of those: in the end, it´s supposed to be a temporary support while you find a new job, not paid vacations.

chvid• 12 years ago

Wrt 1. Are the numbers in the article not before taxes (including the income tax withheld by the employer)?

In general the cost of living in United States is lower than in Europe. Not higher. Even when you compare the hotspots (like New York to London).

vidarh• 12 years ago

Almost every European country have payroll taxes, sometimes going up into the 15%-20% range, and those are rarely counted as part of income (the exception tends to be libertarians on an anti-tax crusade...). Withheld income tax is a different matter - that would definitively be counted.

However California has a state payroll tax that isn't much out of line with many European countries, so I don't that part affects the salary difference that much (I've not bothered to look up what the French payroll tax rates are).

Note that based on those numbers Paris is "cheap" when compared even to "nearby" European cities like London.

yodsanklai2• 12 years ago

Exactly. I've worked both in France and the US. My salary was indeed double in the US. But with everything factored in, it was not really different salary-wise. Also, I have much more free time in France which is very important for me. I really loved the US for the whole living abroad experience and would go back in a heartbeat for this reason, but my quality of life is better in France (not in Paris though). EDIT: (I also didn't have to pay anything for my education.) I'm a bit tired of those articles that announce a brain drain because France is supposedly so unfriendly to talented people or entrepreneurs. We live in a global world now and it would be a shame not to experience living in other countries. Doesn't mean that France is doomed to bankrupt because our economy isn't as liberal as it is in the US for instance.

vixin• 12 years ago

I don't know about 'unfriendly' but these appear to be the numbers:

"The French consulate in London estimates between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens live in the British capital" which compares to city populations as follows:

    Paris - 2.3m
    Marseille - 859,000
    Lyon - 488,000
    Toulouse - 447,000
    Nice - 344,000

whereas "20,500 of the 135,000 expat Brits in the country live in or close to Paris".

yaantc4• 12 years ago

Indeed, and the children make a big difference. There's a lot of support related to raising kids in France, and as you point out the cost of education is widely different.

When I considered staying in the Silicon Valley ~15 years ago I looked into this a bit --- rough assessment, not detailed study. It seemed at the time that with up to a single kid SV was more interesting money-wise, but with 2 kids France became more attractive again. As an inexperienced foreigner I may have missed some cost factor for SV, and the sky-rocketing cost of education in the US may give a different result today.

In the end I came back to France for reasons unrelated to money: there's just no place like home ;)

nolite2• 12 years ago

> For that kind of quality, I would have easily paid something like $5000 or more in the States.

like $50000 or more in the States.

You missed a '0'. FTFY

ramblerman• 12 years ago

Not taking into consideration

- rent

- cost of living

- More Paid leave and shorter work weeks (in france)

- Included health/pension/social benefits

Makes this a very one sided comparison. I could also imagine a brain drain effect might be at play like with India, where the average talent of the French developer who relocated is somewhat higher than the average of the developers in the original country.

xinkr• 12 years ago

Right. We definetly need a wider cost-benefit analysis.

illumen• 12 years ago

Also you get to live 2 years longer... 79.4 for males in France, and 77.4 for males in the USA. Women about 6 years longer in France, and 5 years longer in the USA. You get almost 2 years extra holiday over the working lifetime too.

lotsofmangos2• 12 years ago

Bringing up Ferguson is a bit of cheap shot, especially considering the Paris riots and the situation with policing there. Going from Paris to San Francisco might actually get you slightly less police harassment depending on your background.

yaantc4• 12 years ago

There's been no riots in Paris, there were in some parts of the suburbs of Paris. I've seen the coverage in the US of the Paris riots and it's true you could feel like Paris was on fire. But living in Paris itself or in the close and nice suburbs (as I do) you would have seen nothing at all.

It's part of the problem: the rioting suburbs are ghettoized and have huge unemployment. There's also a strong stigma if you look for a job with an address there.

It's a real and big issue for France, but for the high-tech jobs and people covered by the article it's a non issue: you'll be in the safe parts and will only see such event on TV. It will have no practical impact on your life.

lotsofmangos2• 12 years ago

"for the high-tech jobs and people covered by the article it's a non issue: you'll be in the safe parts and will only see such event on TV"

I am fairly sure that coders and geeks from within those Paris suburbs would find your assessment more than a little exclusionary. Ability and interest are not defined by being born somewhere safe.

bambax• 12 years ago

health car system

health care.

these points are relatively mute

moot.

draugadrotten• 12 years ago

French work week is 35 hours by law, with five weeks of paid leave per year worked. I bet that the double pay looks less attractive when you realize that Silicon Valley programmers work nearly double hours.

http://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment_information...

mercurial2• 12 years ago

35 hours by law, but it's not uncommon to be more in practice for IT workers.

yaantc4• 12 years ago

It's more complicated than this. At a certain level of seniority, which most engineers are, the 35h/week rule do not apply anymore. There still are restrictions but it's really to avoid abuse (make sure you get enough sleep for example, I don't have the details in mind sorry). To compensate for the extra hours, there are extra days of vacations though, call "RTT" (Reduction du Temps de Travail = work time reduction). Here too, I don't have the exact number in mind, about 7 or 8 days / year --- enough that I don't bother tracking my vacation days precisely, as you can see ;)

So the 35h/week rule is mostly for basic jobs, not for people working in high tech.

That kind of situation is quite typical by the way: the French system is over-complicated with too many options and special cases. Foreign coverage tend to stick to the high level headlines (which is perfectly normal) and as a result people often have a distorted view of reality.

song• 12 years ago

The 35 hours week is a mythical beast in French startups. People talk about it but few have seen it.

bsaul3• 12 years ago

A few precision about this "35 hours" law.

First, since 2000, the "cadre" workers (the status pretty much everyone working in IT or services has) don't count work hours by the week, but annually in days. Which means in practice the law only result in employyes having more days off during the year.

Secondly, in many cases and especially in start ups, employees don't take all their annual leaves, and instead "choose" (sometimes they don't really choose it) to have their "days off" be paid instead.

As a result, for IT workers, this 35hours a week law only results in a few more holidays and a bonus.

zobzu2• 12 years ago

in reality developers are hired as "managers level" (called "cadre") which is not 35h above 40h and close to what you'd do in the US time wise (you do get 5 weeks of holidays vs 2 tho!)

jacquesm• 12 years ago

What you can earn is only relevant when compared to what you spend, and what your perceived quality of life is.

DanielBMarkham• 12 years ago

A very good point.

Also true,some folks may want to make less and have a bunch of things "pre-digested" for them. Others may want more and be able to purchase goods and services (like college educations) as they choose. There is no right or wrong here. This is a "do you like ice cream" question.

Additionally, simply because you're making more and living in the U.S. doesn't mean you can't have a laid back lifestyle. Or if you're making less in living in France you're as free as you want to work and play as hard as you want.

These broad generalizations don't mean much.

Having said all of that, in my own career when I was young I chased the money. Not to get rich: I simply found that people who pay a lot of money for stuff are usually doing something very interesting. There's a lot more stuff going on in SV than in Lyon. This was my choice. Others make different ones.

jfpuget• 12 years ago

Revenue tax (impot sur le revenu) is also much higher in the US unless your salary is really high in France.

ferrantim• 12 years ago

As a recent transplant from San Francisco to Nantes, France, I'd like to point out that my salary is about half of what it was in the US, taking into consideration exchange rate, so the article is right on. However, my purchasing power has gone up about 2x. My apartment in San Francisco was $4000/month for a 2 bedroom. In Nantes, I pay €800 euros for a 2 bedroom that is about 25% bigger. Some things are more expensive in France, but one the whole, it is much much cheaper, and I'd argue that quality of life is way better.

For what it is worth, I am American with a french partner. Probably not as easy for others to get a Visa to work in France.

aianus2• 12 years ago

I find this hard to believe. As a Canadian my experience is that everything is cheaper in San Francisco save for rent which doesn't begin to cover the tax and salary disparity ($2.2k for a studio vs $1.3k, big whoop). Given that France seems even more expensive than Canada for electronics, cars, fuel, taxes, etc, where are you realizing these savings?

bsaul3• 12 years ago

Paris is expensive, but the rest of the country is pretty cheap. Nantes isn't even in the "second biggest" city league. So you can expect something like 25% to 50% discount on the cost of pretty much everything (especially rent, but not just that).

liotier2• 12 years ago

A huge one for example is daycare - I pay €220 a month for full time daycare for one of my five daughters near Paris. Everything kid-related is heavily subsidized, so people can actually afford kids and the country does not die of old age.

nolite2• 12 years ago

Food is way cheaper in Paris than SF... both groceries, and restaurants.

yitchelle• 12 years ago

On a human level, salary comparison is only part of the story. It needs to take into account how much ends in your wallet and how much you can buy with that money.

presty• 12 years ago

It isn't really fair to compare SF with Nantes

S4M5• 12 years ago

I was about to say the same thing. I don't think Paris is considerably cheaper than San Francisco - if probably is, but my guess would be 30% cheaper, except maybe for the rent.

Gmo• 12 years ago

Indeed, Nantes is much better ! ;-P

ownagefool6• 12 years ago

So in UK pay goes like this:

Salaried Developer @ £40K £3,333.33 Gross £2,512.89 Net

Contract Developer @ £350 per/day using a trust £7350 Gross £6027 Net

Contract Developer @ £350 per/day using an umbrella £7350 Gross £4,333.68 Net

Contract Developer @ £350 using Ltd £8820 Gross using flat-tax scheme You'll need an accountant to tell you what you can actually get net, if you have a wife that doesn't work it'll closer to a trust, if you don't, it'll be closer to an umbrella, but you can defer to bring it closer to the trust if you're patient.

I'm not sure what people actually get paid in SV, but £350 is fairly low end, you can pull £600 a day in London which'll earn you $250,000 assuming you never take a holiday or are inbetween jobs, which isn't a good idea.

P.S. The salaried developer probably costs the company more too.

FYI you don't need to be in the UK to contract, I just don't know the tax structures elsewhere.

jadc• 12 years ago

Would you mind explaining the trust/umbrella/Ltd schemes? Probably not familiar for folks from outside the UK.

ownagefool6• 12 years ago

umbrella = you become an employee of them. they pay your taxes as if you were a typical pay-e employee, thus you'll hit the 40% tax bracket fairly quickly.

trust = tax avoidance structure, a trust is just one type, there are many others. http://www.contractoruk.com/ebt/

Ltd company[1] = starting your own offical company. Reason to do this is corp tax is only 20%. You need to pay that on your companies profit[2], but if you're patient it's pretty much all you need to pay[3]. Reason: Dividens are essentially tax free upto 31,865, if you have a spouce that's not earning, double this amount. Add in your tax-free allowance on income tax and a married couple can pull between £70-80k a year "tax-free" and you can defer anything else until later years. Your still paying your 20% corp tax on that income, but you also get resonable expenses. Your laptop, travel, maybe a phone for the most part is what is deemed resonable.

[1] This is the way the .GOV.UK wants you to avoid tax. If you have a non-working spouce, it's pretty much the best way until you start earning > 500 p/d and even then some would debate this is the way to do it.

[2] Profit = your companies income - your salary (not dividens) - expenses.

[3] OK so you'll probably want to set aside ~£1000 a year for accountant fees and ~£500 for insurance. Of course these are expenses, so come off your before your 20% corp-tax.

ownagefool6• 12 years ago

Also people should probably note:

Contractors do not have: > job protection > holiday pay > sick pay > easy access to finance

Just like in SV, those getting the high rates get it because they're cocky enough to ask for it. If you do not feel confident you can stay employed at those prices based on your skillset and, more importantly, your personality, you should probably deeply consider the risk vs reward. Essentially, don't come crying to me if you can't make rent, but believe me, those rates are available, just check jobserve.

On the other hand, I'm a contractor, I don't do overtime without getting paid based on my daily.

BerislavLopac• 12 years ago

According to http://www.listentotaxman.com/ the net income for £350/day is actually £4,993.48 if fully employed (i.e. an umbrella).

ownagefool6• 12 years ago

Good catch.

I used an umbrealls calculator. Umbrellas do have fees but the difference is probably the changing in tax-free allowance in recent years, I'd hope at least.

Overarching point is though, you can earn SV wages in European countries, just not typically as a salaried employee.

lukasm• 12 years ago

It always amazes me that someone compare gross salaries. It should always be with some form of EBITA with normalization and net profit.

zobzu2• 12 years ago

i got a 20% lower salary in paris than i did in SF. but with costs of living, health care, 401k, free education and all, the difference is actually not significant and in fact probably null or negative...

if you need none of the benefits you get in france, you'll get slightly more in SF.

so its not really a clear cut

liotier2• 12 years ago

if you need none of the benefits you get in france, you'll get slightly more in SF.

Yes : if you are young, healthy and with no kids, you are better off in the USA, Malta or any other fiscal 'paradise' where you benefit from the lack of solidarity. Otherwise you are better off in a country whose fiscal system takes social welfare in consideration.

bsaul3• 12 years ago

Little anecdote :

A few years ago, a contact in one of our customer working at a Very Big IT company in silicon valley (and i mean VERY BIG) happened to be french. He had a high role in that company, so he presumably made quite a lot of money. Well, one day his wife was diagnosed cancer, so guess what he did : he went back living in France for her. And i didn't ask so I may be wrong, but i presume it wasn't for the air quality.

French Developers can earn double in Silicon Valley

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