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Comment by Bayart | Hacker News Reader

Less access to capital, engineers still considered glorified blue-collars.

In France "engineers" are considered the top of the pile, they have a higher status than in the UK, not least because they traditionally stem from "Grandes Ecoles".

Edit: interesting that the person I'm replying to wrote "considered glorified blue collar", which I interpret as status, and that those who are replying to me focus on pay. In the UK a plumber (blue collar) or train driver can make more than a software engineer who is university educated and enjoys a higher status, for instance.

Salaries in tech/software are not that different in UK and France. Perhaps London salaries in hot startups are outliers.

I don't think there is a difference in the way devs/programmers are considered on either side of the channel. The key is not that but rather the company/industry. A tech company will consider them a key resource, an old industrial company maybe not...

"engineers" are considered the top of the pile: as long as they're not talking salaries...

I switched to not working for french companies for that very reason. Engineer, loads of experience, low salary compared to the UK or US.

I know you could put a price on the "french social privilege", but I didn't benefit from it the least bit (no kids, working) so I was better off without it.

> In France "engineers" are considered the top of the pile, they have a higher status than in the UK, not least because they traditionally stem from "Grandes Ecoles".

Very few people come from the Grandes Écoles, that's the point of them. There are far more engineering schools than that. And even then they don't necessarily have exceedingly high status and pay. In France status means being management/exec. You're technical ? Well, get fucked, you're from a lower caste.

Hence why I wrote 'traditionally' but even being an engineer from an engineering school is high status in France.

You seem to conflate your experience and generally the pecking order in a company with something specifically French whereas it's not.

> In France status means being management/exec. You're technical ? Well, get fucked, you're from a lower caste.

That was my impression as well, working as an engineer in France. Is it different in the UK or other European countries?

Even talking about mechanical engineers, they're paid poorly. The average is like $40-50k USD atm. There's a reason inequality is lower in these countries than the US, because high-skilled workers are paid much less.

I think he means programmers.

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