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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 Silic

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/French-labour-laws_-Working-time-and-leave_16106.html http://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment_information...

mercurial 12y ago
35 hours by law, but it's not uncommon to be more in practice for IT workers.
yaantc 12y 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 12y ago
The 35 hours week is a mythical beast in French startups. People talk about it but few have seen it.
bsaul 12y 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.
zobzu 12y 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!)
zobzu 12y 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!)

mercurial 12y ago

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

yaantc 12y 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 12y ago

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

bsaul 12y 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.

zobzu 12y 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!)

zobzu 12y 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!)