| ▲ | tasoeur 2 hours ago |
| Last I saw job offers for mistral (engineering, Paris) it advertised 90k euros base salary. Not sure how they’re intending to compete with the US when even a top AI lab can’t afford to be competitive :-/ |
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| ▲ | swiftcoder 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Last I saw job offers for mistral (engineering, Paris) it advertised 90k euros base salary. Not sure how they’re intending to compete with the US when even a top AI lab can’t afford to be competitive :-/ Does the US position come with 5 weeks paid vacation? When the US position gets hit with layoffs, do you still have comprehensive healthcare and unemployment coverage? Yes, EU software Eng salaries are a lot lower than their US equivalents, but quite a lot of folks are happy having a top 5% salary in their own county, without all the stresses and risks of working in the US. As a concrete example, a few years back it leaked that Dan Abramov's (very decent) London salary was half what his US peers earned. Didn't seem to bother the man much at all... |
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| ▲ | chrocni380 4 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Does the US position come with 5 weeks paid vacation? When the US position gets hit with layoffs, do you still have comprehensive healthcare and unemployment coverage? Work a US job for 4 months, quit, take the next 8 months for holiday/vacation, and you still save more money than a European SWE. Hey, the 2010s are calling, they want the trope “BuT eUrOpE hAs pAiD lEaVe” back. |
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| ▲ | pkos98 36 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In Germany AFAIK their Senior base salary ceiling is ~ 180k EUR - approx 210k USD for an Engineering role. Thats quite competitive for a base salary, as high as max ICT5 Staff base at Apple Munich. |
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| ▲ | pimeys 10 minutes ago | parent [-] | | And 180k in Germany, even in Berlin is pretty good. You are living a very good life with that salary. |
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| ▲ | kraftman an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There's more to life than money past a certain point, I'd rather live in the Alps on a lower salary. |
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| ▲ | user43928 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I imagine you could do so while working for an US AI Lab in Zurich for five times the net pay. | |
| ▲ | selfawareMammal an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You dont even live in the Alps with 90K lmao. And if you expect top performance, you should expect top salary. Or at least something competitive. 90K for a company like Mistral is a bit embarrassing. | | |
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| ▲ | kome 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| some people would rather live in paris than los angels or san francisco (and rightly so, if you ask me)... |
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| ▲ | eloisant 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | US software companies (Google, Meta, MS, etc) have offices in Paris and they pay way more than that. Especially if you take into account total comp (Mistral is private so any stocks you get are "locked" until IPO or sell out) Yes 90k is more than most French software companies pay, but the salary needs to be competitive with those US companies. | | |
| ▲ | jongjong 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | When I was in Germany a few years ago, I was browsing jobs available in France and most software development jobs were under $55K USD. I don't know how you're supposed to survive on that. You can probably make more money as a waiter. Germany is not so great either in that sense though at least in crypto sector, the pay was reasonable... Though as a job it was total BS. UK was pretty good at some point (though all the really good jobs were gate-kept by IR35 regulations), The Netherlands was pretty good (especially contract roles thanks to big tax discounts for foreigners). But IMO, one of the best countries outside of the US for software work has been Australia. I actually came back to Australia because of it. Though it's not quite as lucrative today but it's certainly still much better paid than France and has potential. That said, if you want to do your own startup and you do not have special business connections or pedigree, then the US is the only real option IMO. I think it comes down to easy money. Easy come, easy go. To be rich enough to invest in startups in France, you need to be born into old money or be a complete freak of nature. These kinds of people don't part with their money easily. They need a guaranteed return and they can't rely on any media channel to bring traffic. If you live outside of the US, all media channels are essentially working against you; you can literally feel that and so everything is riskier. It's like playing the same game with a massive handicap. | | |
| ▲ | Bayart 20 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > When I was in Germany a few years ago, I was browsing jobs available in France and most software development jobs were under $55K USD. I don't know how you're supposed to survive on that. You can probably make more money as a waiter. Salaries are calculated differently in France, Germany, US etc. For example working in Germany you're likely to fork a huge amount monthly to your health insurance. It actually makes it difficult to negotiate comp across borders. $55k USD brut in France is around 2.8k EUR / month after taxes in France, which counts as the upper bracket of Middle Class in most of the country outside of Paris. Paltry when you're used to tech comps but decent for the vast majority of people here. On the whole I agree that it's not competitive regionally or globally, and as for myself I'd leave for Switzerland or Australia if I had the opportunity. |
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| ▲ | tasoeur 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I actually live in Paris and get your point, but at some point you have to face the reality of the market/industry and really try your best to get good folks to join, especially in the current climate where US researchers may be looking for greener pastures. | | |
| ▲ | Towaway69 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > researchers may be looking for greener pastures. Is that still a thing? Or have those would leave have left, after all, it's been ~6 years of Trump already. | | |
| ▲ | clarionbell 14 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Sort of yes. But it's nowhere near as much as some would like to believe. It mostly concerns those who have unclear immigration status, had their funding cut off, or don't care about money. Now, that is quite a lot of people. But not nearly enough to reverse decades of brain drain. |
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| ▲ | mciancia 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But you should be able to hire most of the people you want, not just some that happen to pick Paris. Also, if given a choice of 90k eur in Paris vs let's say 2m usd in US I'm pretty sure suddenly most of the issues people have with US would suddenly disappear ;) |
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