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 :-/
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 :-/
> 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...
Pay isn't the main problem with Paris, it's quality of life.
Housing near work is mostly old Haussmannian buildings that are rent capped and where demand far exceeds supply, so most of the stock is unmaintained. You either accept bad housing in the city or live in the suburbs and commute — not ideal.
To make matters worse, French companies (especially old-school ones) have a culture of presenteeism for white collar jobs, it's uncommon for people to leave before 6PM and staying late is rewarded as high engagement.
Lastly, you might consider buying and renovating a house so you can escape this dilemma, but it isn't cheap: 2-bedroom (T3) around 700k euros, that represents 20 years of frugal savings on 90k gross.
Vacation, cheap and good healthcare, and unemployment benefits are great in France, but the current government has been eroding these social benefits, and those are not unique to France for well-paid tech workers anyway.
Well said, these talking points pushed by EU politicians for decades need to stop. US white collar workers have access to pretty much the same benefits than EU ones, but have a much higher after tax compensation, even taking health care into account.
And nowadays, with the erosion of the social safety net pushed by the French government, the gap is even more narrow. There definitely are huge inequalities there, US are far from being the heartless place EU politicians like to depict.
Usually the us position is unlimited pto and yes you have options if laid off
> 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.
Yes, absolutely, the problem is these are not the people you want to hire.
And the people you do want to hire are either already in US or work for a US company remotely for 3x the salary.
> When the US position gets hit with layoffs, do you still have comprehensive healthcare and unemployment coverage?
What does this have to do if the advertised base salary? You would pay for your healthcare and social security with huge taxes from that already meager salary, it is not like those 90k is all-taxes-paid-and-batteries-included offer.
Come on. We're talking about a salary that is ONE THIRD of what you'd get at AI labs in US (plus the stock and the bonus). And significantly less taxes. Are you sure that 5 weeks of vacation, what you call "comprehensive" healthcare (spoiler alert: it's not), and unemployment coverage are worth 180K/year reduction in salary (pre-taxes)?
To not talk about the toxic environment that European companies generate in general. Ie: "you should be grateful you have this job".
> 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.
Europe in 2026 (France, Germany, UK, Estonia, etc). What a joke. Nobody in the world respects them.
At least the US has jobs and a military. Not as good as before, but better than Europe.
Ah yeah, let me know about your healthcare too, specially after you quit that job. And unemployment. And public services. And scientific entities. And general cost of living. Good you have the military to spend a trillion a year in contractors.
That's pretty high for engineering in France though. Most engineers by far are way below that there, this is top management level.
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.
And 180k in Germany, even in Berlin is pretty good. You are living a very good life with that salary.
That's like top 1% salary for Germany. Maybe 3% if you count family units, or 0.5% for individual taxpayers. I'd say that's pretty good.
Beats 90% of Canadian software engineer salaries. If I wasn't tied down with 2 border collies, a chicken, a cat, and, uh, wife and kids, I'd jump to that in an instant. German quality of life is still pretty good despite all their complaining.
There's more to life than money past a certain point, I'd rather live in the Alps on a lower salary.
I imagine you could do so while working for an US AI Lab in Zurich for five times the net pay.
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.
€90k is in the top 5% salaries in France. Of course you can live in the Alps, or anywhere else in France for that matter.
I literally do.
> You dont even live in the Alps with 90K lmao.
this comment is insane...
To be fair, Switzerland is really expensive.
The alps are shared between Switzerland, Italy and France. You can live in the French alps a lot cheaper than in Switzerland
ok, but besides the fact 90k is absolutely fine for CH as well, and incredibly good for italy, france or austria.
some people would rather live in paris than los angels or san francisco (and rightly so, if you ask me)...
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> UK was pretty good at some point (though all the really good jobs were gate-kept by IR35 regulations),
Then we got a PM, who's father in law is the founder of Infosys, who changed the law to favour the likes of Infosys (by making it too risky for smaller players to hire contractors). Scandalous corruption
Contracting was going to be my plan for buying a better house and early retirement, but that's gone now. Thanks Rishi
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 ;)
> Not sure how they’re intending to compete with the US when even a top AI lab can’t afford to be competitive.
It probably means they don't, they just do their own thing how they see fit.