[eloisant]

1. That's only half if you compare with Silicon Valley, not the US average

2. For the employer: there's more taxes to pay than in US, so the cost is not half

3. For the employee: you a lot of "social benefits" like health care, free education for your kids, etc. so a lower salary in France doesn't necessarily mean lower life standard

There is however a problem in French startup is that most of them pay much lower than the average job an engineer can get (i.e. B2B service industry). That's a consequence of not being able to raise as much as in Silicon Valley.

[potatolicious]

1. Right, but both the Valley and Paris are tremendously expensive places to be - arguably Paris has more justification for being expensive, being more desirable in non-tech ways. The fair way to look at it is by comparing salary relative to cost of living, and I'm not sure if Paris is competitive even then.

2 + 3. I'm a Canadian, I'm used to social benefits, but Canadian taxes also aren't that much higher than US taxes. In fact, when I was in California the taxes were for all intents and purposes identical to the equivalent income in Canada. From the sounds of other posts, the tax revenue is primarily coming out of personal income taxes, not corporate taxes - which means a lower salary is extra-painful.

I've heard this argument from Canadians, that the 50%-off-engineers situation in Canada compared to the US is somehow a good thing. It's not, there is a tremendous brain drain to the extent that of all the capable devs I've met in school, I only know 3 who remain in Canada.