The first thing that happens to French engineers who interview for Google: "So, this position exists only in our Dublin, London or Zurich offices. Which one would you be interested in?"
Google's office in Paris (rue de Londres) in pretty big. And it was only a few examples, but there are other wealthy multinational software companies hiring engineers in France.
I have friends who had an offer at Google, but joined French companies that aligned their offer with Google. So the impact on the job market goes beyond people strictly working for them.
anecdotal? Not sure you used the right word there...
FWIW, I work for google and have access to the numbers. Although I can't give specifics, I will say that although Dublin, London, and Zurich are all larger sites within Europe, the Paris office has a non-trivial number of engineers, and some cool projects going on.
It has roughly 100+ engineers. That is indeed VERY anecdotal, how could you claim something else? Even compared to Google worldwide (~25,000), but compared to big companies that employ thousands of engineers in France, Capgemini for instance: 22,000, Dassault Systèmes: 3,000…
