French Developers can earn double in Silicon Valley

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.

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.

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 ;)

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).

>> 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

> 5000$

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

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.

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?

It isn't really fair to compare SF with Nantes

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.

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

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

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

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!)

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).

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

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

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.