Parisian Amazon SDE here. I will mainly be able to talk about Amazon and Google, as I've only been contacted by these companies.

The process to get into a FAANG company in France is the same as anywhere else: screening, phone interview, loop... Actually, you don't interview for a specific location. Your office is selected at the end of the process, based on your preferences and the positions that they have opened. For example, even though I'm French, my Google recruiter told me up front that I would probably be located (assuming I pass the interviews) in another European office (London, Zürich, Dublin...). For Amazon, I only learned at the end of the process that they actually have developers working in France.

This is the reason why it might be difficult to get a job in Paris at a FAANG company: they simply have way less open positions than in other European countries. As an example, the Amazon office in Paris only have ~30 SDEs.

Regarding the compensations, while FAANG offer compensations above any other French company, do not expect a US-level salary! Their compensation are adjusted to the local market. For a junior-level role, you can expect a TC between 60k and 75k € for Amazon, and from 70k to 90k € for Google. Higher compensations at this level are possible but rare, and from what I've seen for more data/ML-oriented roles. For a more senior role at Amazon, I think that L6 compensations are rarely above 150k €. I don't think there are tech employees with a level higher than L6 at Amazon in Paris. However, in France, those are the most competitive salaries (you will NOT have a compensation this high at Thales!). Levels.fyi data are actually a good representation of the market.

Positions in neighbouring countries (Luxembourg for Amazon, Switzerland for Google) will systematically have a better compensation. It's sometimes possible to be located in these countries and work remotely with a team in Paris.

However, if you already work for one of these companies and then move to Paris, I've heard that your compensation may not decrease, so that might be an ideal solution!

Thank you very much for your very informative reply ! I’ll keep everything in mind