4 ms·

I don't live in France but I do feel qualified to comment on the general comparison, being a US software guy in Europe. First, things like health care and free

by biztos 10y ago

I don't live in France but I do feel qualified to comment on the general comparison, being a US software guy in Europe. First, things like health care and free university are a huge deal if you plan to stay past your 30's. Consider being able to take a couple years to try a business without freaking out about health insurance. Consider being able to go get a PhD in some interesting subject without having to get a full scholarship. Consider, obviously, having kids and sending them to world-class universities without incurring any debt. Then there's the job security aspect. It can be really nice to be employed in a country where people aren't just laid off whenever a company misses its quarterly numbers. And finally, if you really are an actual Expert in a field where that's worth a lot of money, it's probably worth about as much in France as it is elsewhere. Sure all the "senior" programmers with 3 years' experience get paid a lot less than in the US, but I don't think the VP level does badly at all. (Maybe I'm being naive here... my point of reference being Germany.) I hear it can be very hard to get a proper, "permanent" job in France, but I also hear the quality of life is pretty amazing if you do.

rubber_duck 10y ago
I'm not trying to compare US and EU because I haven't lived in US, I'm just talking about France in the context of EU (although after Brexit things are a bit different). And I'm mostly asking this stuff as a counter point - I'm not making a definitive statement - again I've only looked in to France superficially before when I was looking for a country to move to - maybe I was wrong - but the arguments he presented don't appeal to me at all. I feel like there are countries with better social security (and seemingly more politically stable than France, again this is just the stuff I pick up from the media) and better pay range (at least that was the case last time I was looking where to move ~2 years ago). And most importantly - the language barrier - programmers have to speak English so English speaking countries don't have this problem.
vostok 10y ago
> Sure all the "senior" programmers with 3 years' experience get paid a lot less than in the US, but I don't think the VP level does badly at all. I think this is true from looking at my family. That's exactly what I don't like about European culture: the really senior people still make a lot of money. Americans are just better at sharing down the food chain.
wtbob 10y ago
> Consider being able to take a couple years to try a business without freaking out about health insurance. Trying a business in a much more challenging business environment? There's not exactly a plethora of French tech startups, after all, despite the state health care. > Consider being able to go get a PhD in some interesting subject without having to get a full scholarship. Will universities accept some random fellow in his 30s who wants to earn a Ph.D.?

by biztos 10y ago

rubber_duck 10y ago

I'm not trying to compare US and EU because I haven't lived in US, I'm just talking about France in the context of EU (although after Brexit things are a bit different). And I'm mostly asking this stuff as a counter point - I'm not making a definitive statement - again I've only looked in to France superficially before when I was looking for a country to move to - maybe I was wrong - but the arguments he presented don't appeal to me at all. I feel like there are countries with better social security (and seemingly more politically stable than France, again this is just the stuff I pick up from the media) and better pay range (at least that was the case last time I was looking where to move ~2 years ago). And most importantly - the language barrier - programmers have to speak English so English speaking countries don't have this problem.

vostok 10y ago

> Sure all the "senior" programmers with 3 years' experience get paid a lot less than in the US, but I don't think the VP level does badly at all. I think this is true from looking at my family. That's exactly what I don't like about European culture: the really senior people still make a lot of money. Americans are just better at sharing down the food chain.

wtbob 10y ago

> Consider being able to take a couple years to try a business without freaking out about health insurance. Trying a business in a much more challenging business environment? There's not exactly a plethora of French tech startups, after all, despite the state health care. > Consider being able to go get a PhD in some interesting subject without having to get a full scholarship. Will universities accept some random fellow in his 30s who wants to earn a Ph.D.?