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American in Paris for 1 year working as a Senior DevSecOps Engineer (or whatever they want to call us). Went from 225kUSD/yr in usa to 95kEUR in Europe (most se
by xacaxulu 8y ago
American in Paris for 1 year working as a Senior DevSecOps Engineer (or whatever they want to call us).
Went from 225kUSD/yr in usa to 95kEUR in Europe (most senior devs are lucky to get 75k, paris tech salaries are lagging behind London, AMS and Berlin. I felt like I was getting underpaid until I figured out (awkwardly at a dinner) that i make more than a lot of doctors and government ministers.
Plus the healthcare, subsidized transit, subsidized lunches 20 days a month and TRUE vacation means I'm never going back to the states.
All that being said, I'm bouncing to Berlin for a higher salary and a roughly 30 percent drop in cost of living compared to Paris.
Check out jobbatical.com
Amsterdam is a hot scene, Berlin is hot and affordable, dont come to Paris unless you really speak French and or have deep Fintech/banking tech background.
- sneeze-slayer 8y agoIt's interesting that you're moving to Berlin for a higher salary. I thought Berlin was infamous for very low salaries, but perhaps that's only among junior developers.
- gonsanchezs 8y agoFrom personal friends, I know you can get paid >120k EUR if you have 5-10+ years of experience.
- ido 8y agoI would be interested to know what these friends do. From my personal experience in game-dev in Berlin, the highest earning coding individual-contributor (so not a manager) salary I ever saw was 70-something €k per year (and it is quite rare to go above €65k even as a very senior programmer). You will literally have to be C-level at a large and succesful company to earn €120k+ as far as I can tell (in this sector).
- dietr1ch 8y agoHaven't the game industry always relied on offering a "dream job" to underpay?
- ido 8y agoSure, I expected web devs to earn maybe €80-90k but not €120k+
- expertentipp 8y ago> salary I ever saw was 70-something €k per year (and it is quite rare to go above €65k even as a very senior programmer). That's my impression as well, of the job market in Berlin as dev contributor in many industries. There exists just rock solid ceiling at 70k EUR and that's it. No idea about stricte managerial roles but these are oftentimes reserved to native Germans and the competition is beyond fierce so forget about it (unless you are Abmahnung, Betriebsrat, and Arbeitsrecht virtuoso).
- ido 8y agoI’ve not experienced managerial roles being reserved for native Germans in the Berlin tech industry at least - had plenty of non-German managers.
- CalRobert 8y agoGame development is famously underpaid. After all, you're competing with wide-eyed 23 year olds with no bills or family who have dreamed of making games their whole life. I was apparently pretty well paid at my last job (Game Dev) at 68k EUR a year. Also, note that a lot of Europeans quote salary after tax, which can make a big difference.
- ido 8y agoyou're competing with wide-eyed 23 year olds Not for senior/lead roles (I've done hiring in several companies). There are lots of people competing for junior roles but its still not that easy to recruit true seniors (10+ years work experience).
- 0x5002 8y agoI cannot confirm this at all. I have some friends who work in Germany (I left several years ago to the US), and even those in senior tech jobs with years of experience only get up to ~80k EUR and the sky-high taxes push that down to <50k.
- atq2119 8y agoI'm working in Munich in a reasonably senior role (but <10 years, of which <3 years at that company), total compensation is ~120k Euros before taxes. It's not super common, but it's definitely possible.
- xacaxulu 8y agoLiterally the exact same offer I accepted for me, but in Berlin. I prefer Bavaria but all my biz is in Berlin. +1
- fileeditview 8y agoIn my experience this salary is only available for team leads and only in some companies. Certainly not for 5 years of experience. However sometimes there seem to be like parallel realities when it comes to salary.
- xacaxulu 8y agoLike everything, ymmv. You are correct about lower junior salaries but taken in the context of an even lower cost of living...go to Berlin. Also sounds weird to say but germans are 1000x nicer and more welcoming than the French. Berlin good stuff is that the tech scene soeaks English, all the hot iot, telekom, autonomous vehicle stuff is in berlin and its the cheapest of the cities to live in. I am coming from a background around 10 years in the industry with a lot of finance and defence experience. Plus I just always apply for 5 jobs then let them duke it out ;)
- gonsanchezs 8y agoAh, the magic of the Tiquet Resto and 38 days of paid vacation/year ;)
- adventured 8y agoAt $225,000 what was your total compensation and did that include healthcare (which is basically universal at that salary)? If you're earning that much, essentially all of your healthcare costs should be getting covered by your employer, as would be typical (it's typical at half that salary). I can easily understand a preference regarding culture and ease of transit, however it's hard to believe that 20 subsidized lunches per month is a perk worthy of losing a million plus dollars per decade over.
- countryqt30 8y agoWELCOME to Germany! <3 Lovely and smart people all around, great foreigner scene and startup scene as well, so you’ll never feel alone. People super open and approachable, love Americans :))
- xacaxulu 8y agoThat was total comp. I was a Solutions Architect at Dell EMC. But I worked 60 hour weeks, did the usual client facing bs, used my own time to fill out reimbursement forms yaddayadda. Id rather make 80k in France any day of the week.
- ido 8y agoAt the end of the day time is one thing you can’t easily buy - even if you’re making out like a bandit you can’t pay to work fewer hour or get more vacation days (it’s possible sometimes but I always had a much harder time negotiating for those than for higher pay).
- welder 8y agoWelcome to Berlin! Make sure to check out the Factory coworking space Friday night social event, and lemme know if I can be of any help!
- badpun 8y agoHow do the post-tax salaries (Paris vs US) look like? I’m asking because France is reported to have the highest taxes in the world.
- kogepathic 8y agoI live and work in Paris. My net income after taxes, social contributions, etc is 65% of my gross salary. This includes the new prélèvement à la source, so in theory I shouldn't owe additional taxes next year. I personally calculate every mandatory contribution that comes off my gross salary as "taxes" even though many people will disagree. IMHO, it's mandatory, it comes off the top, so it's "taxes" I wouldn't consider 35% of my gross salary as being overly high, considering the excellent quality of life here. I cannot comment on how this compares to US taxes since I've never lived or worked there. The taxes/quality of life I experience in Paris is similar to what I had living in Germany. Given that we have so much vacation here, rent is reasonable, and infrastructure is very good (I can be in Brussels in 2 hours with the TGV) it's unlikely I'll ever move back to Canada.
- novaRom 8y ago>> My net income after taxes, social contributions, etc is 65% of my gross salary. It certainly depends on your income?
- chupasaurus 8y agoIT workers' salaries would fall into 30% income tax rate category anyway. Should be noticed that french taxes for EEA residents are made of household total income divided for spouses, so one might pay less.
- badpun 8y agoFrom what I've read, France is using a trick (used by other countries in Europe as well, Poland for example) where the "gross" amount stated on your employment contract is not the real gross amount, because the employer pays additional taxes (invisible to you) on top of it. So, effectively the employment contract is taxed on both your end and employer's, for a total 50%+ of effective taxation. I suppose this trick is used to not make people angry when they see their payslip.
- joelbluminator 8y agoAmsterdam is pricey and the salaries are not that good, if you want to come for the experience sure go for it. But to settle in? Think twice.
- digianarchist 8y agoRent in Dublin is ridiculous too.
- systemtest 8y agoFor a fair comparison, look at contracting/freelance in Europe. You will have the same social safety net and benefits as the US (i.e. none) and the pay will be around 160kEUR per year (180kUSD) with 7 weeks of holiday. Given our lower cost of living you might even be better off.
- kkwteh 8y agoI moved to Paris from San Francisco. The startup I joined uses English as its working language, so the language barrier hasn't been a problem at all. Also I found French to be relatively similar to English and quite easy to learn. It's been a huge joy being able to speak to people in a second language. I've wanted to learn a second language for a long time and I finally have a good reason to do it. Also there are interesting startups in Paris outside of fintech, like Alan (where I work), Algolia, and Datadog. Airbnb, Facebook and Google have offices here as well I believe. I've never been to Berlin, so I can't really compare, but I really enjoy living in Paris so far. I certainly like Paris more than San Francisco. I wrote a blog post about my move a few weeks ago: https://medium.com/@kkwteh/why-i-moved-from-san-francisco-to-paris-and-joined-the-engineering-team-at-alan-b2d739cd2d9f https://medium.com/@kkwteh/why-i-moved-from-san-francisco-to...
- xacaxulu 8y agoDon't forget Doctolib
- kdlkldwkfr 8y agoThe salary in the parent comment it's out off the charts. What do you think of Parisian salaries? Most devs make 2618 per month after taxes which is barely enough for a very modest life. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
- kdlkldwkfr 8y agoMost devs get between 45k(2618 euros per month after taxes) and 55k(3074 euros per month after taxes). Paris being on the top 3 most expensive cities in the world. 225k would account for 10125 per month after taxes, but in Paris thats unheard of.
- xacaxulu 8y agoReally not true in my experience. For senior devs with one or two solid infra/CLOUD/multi app deploys under their belts. Hired.com and LOCAL french recruitment firms (talent.io) regularly send me Paris intramuros based (forget idf) offers between 70k-100k depending on the job. My first job offer upon arriving in France was 110k at Thales as a lead DevOps Sngineer. Red Hat EMEA offered me 100k as a solitions architect. I ended up taking a lower offer but in a much more relaxed environmemt at Publicis Groupe in the 11eme. If you aren't hitting the pavement doing inteviews and keeping yourself up to date, and be willing to jump from time to time, you will miss out on higher salaries. France is slowly realising they have to match a bit more with the rest of the world.
- mrweasel 8y ago> 225kUSD/yr That seems insanely high by European standards. That is well above what I would expect even a CTO to make.
- jlangenauer 8y agoThat’s what he/she was making in the United States.
- mrweasel 8y agoI understand that, but I still find that to be extremely high. I'm in Denmark, a country that's known for high cost of living and high saleries to match, and I wouldn't expect a senior dev/ops/sec position to pay more than half that.
- xacaxulu 8y agoIts not high if you live in NYC or SF. Its above average but not by much.
- gnulinux 8y agoIt's normal for people to be paid $120k/y straight out of college in SF Bay Area. $225k/y is normal for seniors.
- xenadu02 8y agoTotal comp for a Senior SW Engineer at one of the big tech companies would be 300-400k/yr.
- razorbladeknife 8y agoI get paid 250K EUR in Geneva for writing deadbeat Scala code for Banks. I doubt anyone can match that in Europe I am straight out of ETH Zurich so my experience is negligible.
- xacaxulu 8y agoI highly contemplated both Zurich and Luxembourg because of my finance tech experience (SocGen, BoA, Wells Fargo, Goldman Stackzzz). I love Switzerland.
- ido 8y agoSwitzerland is an outlier in many aspects for Western Europe :) And not only in terms of earning - look for example at benefits you get for having kids (amount of parental leave, cost of kindergarten, etc). It’s like a weird capitalist Enklave in the middle of Europe. I’ll bet a lot of people thought of having kids in Germany or Austria and moving to Switzerland after a few years of taking advantage of generous benefits for having young kids in the former.
- kaybe 8y agoWhat is also common is to live at the border in one of those or France/Italy and cross the border every day. That way you take advantage of the higher wages and lower living expenses respectively.
- hocuspocus 8y agoYou're lucky. I talked to Lombard Odier some time ago and they pay their Scala devs 120-130k CHF tops. 250k for a software engineer is quite a lot in Geneva, and even Switzerland. Only Google regularly pays that much after a few years of experience.
- razorbladeknife 8y agoSaying I am lucky downplays my hardwork which I put through the university. I hope are you aware of my investment or commitment to studies which got me here
- novaRom 8y ago>> 225kUSD/yr in usa to 95kEUR in Europe 95k is about 50k after taxes and other no opt-out insurances and social taxes. Most EU countries have VAT 19-24%. I usually compare USA with Western Europe using factor 2 (3 for Eastern Europe). So, if you get $150k in USA, you have to get €50k in Budapest to have similar quality of life.
- magduf 8y agoIn my experience, even with that VAT, everyday stuff in Germany is still significantly cheaper than in America. Plus, all the prices in Europe include the VAT, unlike America where the taxes are secret and unknown until you get to the register and your bill is higher than what was advertised.
- flanbiscuit 8y agoAre you single? I know the blue card extends to spouses so just curious if you had a partner with you and if they also wanted to work in Europe
- shemtovo 8y agoWelcome to Berlin, great ecosystem over here, would love to hear your experience in Paris sometime
- CalRobert 8y agoCalifornian in Dublin - I feel embarrassingly overpaid in Ireland. But every time I go to the US, I feel embarrassingly underpaid. My wife and I went from California to Ireland, then back to California for a year, and when she used up her whole 1 week of vacation and we realized even in tech we'd never afford a house where our kids could walk to a decent school, we moved back to Ireland. I'd make 2-3x as much in the US, but I wouldn't be happy. Also - "TRUE vacation " - WHAT THE FUCK is up with Americans who think it's appropriate to bug people about work on vacation. Or to have "unlimited" vacation policies and act surprised when someone wants to take what would be _the legal minimum_ in a lot of other countries. And sticking people on pagerduty half their goddamn lives. Seriously, fuck right off to hell. It's evil.
- magduf 8y agoThe thing to do is to work in the US for a while making a much higher salary, but living as cheaply as possible and banking all that cash. Then go move somewhere where you can enjoy quality-of-life.
- CalRobert 8y agoThree things: 1) Part of the idea is to make work more pleasant, not endure a bunch of misery and then retire happily. 2) I'm alive now. Tomorrow, I might not be. The idea that we should be miserable in the present for a happy future doesn't sit well with me (I've already used up 35 of my years of life!). Around the time I hit 30 I was startled how friends started dying. Not loads, of course, but the rate definitely is creeping up. The mom (and baby) who died of eclampsia really struck home and reminded me that you do not save the best for last. Tomorrow Is Not Guaranteed. 3) Life is a series of closing doors, so they say, and there are huge chunks of life where picking up and moving to another country is completely impractical. Got a husband/wife with a career already going? Hope you're ready to throw out their career or get divorced. Got a kid in a school they like? Kiss that goodbye. Already in a career and think sticking around a couple years will push you further up the ladder? Better just wait a while longer, than longer still, and longer still... Also I graduated college in 2008 and it was a bloodbath. I couldn't get interviewed for ages, and I get plenty of interest now. For any young'uns it's hard to convey just how different (and awful) it can be. And I had it pretty good - at least I was employed. BUT it meant that I wasn't throwing away a career to move to Europe - I had a pretty mediocre job anyway. In a sense, I should be grateful I had the freedom to know I wasn't really losing much by leaving.
- kdlkldwkfr 8y agoYeah, salaries are terrible in Paris. I work here, most places offer between 45k and 60k a year which after all the taxes accounts for 2618 and 3354. But most people get 2618 per month. A 30m2 apartment is 1200 euros minimum. So devs here live a very modest life.
- pantalaimon 8y agoWait you can get more than 95k in Berlin as a developer?! As a fellow developer in Berlin, that sounds pretty outrageous! I'm making half of that.