12 ms·

As someone who's lived in Vancouver for more than 10 years, then went to Waterloo for school (and lived in Toronto for most of my co-ops/internships), I think w

As someone who's lived in Vancouver for more than 10 years, then went to Waterloo for school (and lived in Toronto for most of my co-ops/internships), I think we Canadians should be more worried about highly educated millennials fleeing Canada entirely. Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left. To the Canadian tech industry: How are you ever going to become competitive with the US if you keep offering these humiliatingly low salaries and letting the best and brightest of our own talent get leeched away?

kevindeasis 11y ago
The brain drain is definitely a big issue in Canada. On the bright the cost of living will end up being cheaper in Canada if you can get my flow ;)
deleted 11y ago
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drchiu 11y ago
Agreed. It's just so easy to hire in Canada right now due to the strong USD Exchange Rate. Many startups make money in USD and hire in CAD.
imrehg 11y ago
I think that's an issue everywhere in the world. I'm living in Taiwan (not from here originally), and the tech scene is really being hollowed out for years if not decades. The really best, brightest, and most motivated people are already working abroad. "Humiliating" is a strong word, but the more I think about it, the more apt it feels, there should be a lot more reward for the good techies here (there are some left, miraculously!)
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  It is sad when hire salaries for programmers are to be had in mainland China (e.g. Beijing) than Taiwan. There are just tech friendly places and those that are not, with the USA being at the top in terms of pay.
- vehementi 11y ago
  There will always be people who work for unjustifiably lower salaries
- tomjen3 11y ago
  Why should there be a reward for staying? The market is screaming "leave" and you don't rich by laughing at what the market says.
- lewisl9029 11y ago
  Yes, this is definitely not a problem unique to Canada, but I feel the effects are felt a bit more strongly here due to the fact that the barrier to entry into the US for Canadian citizens is practically nonexistent (TN Visa) compared to elsewhere in the world (H-1B).
arvinsim 11y ago
This also happens in third world countries too. I think this is happens when one can easily compare salaries all over the world.
toomanybeersies 11y ago
It's not that Canada or anywhere else in the world has humiliatingly low salaries, it's just that the USA has such strong regulations on skilled immigration, that the wages for developers are artificially inflated. Most other countries, when faced with a shortage of workers in an industry, prioritise them over everyone else. In New Zealand, you need a certain amount of points to immigrate, and being in a high demand industry gives you a whole stack of points. Meanwhile, the USA still runs a lottery for immigration, as well as H1B, which is a lot more restricted than skilled immigration to a lot of other countries.
- VLM 11y ago
  "the wages for developers are artificially inflated" The wages are reasonable given extremely strict "culture fit" requirements. Must be male, must be white, must be under 30 with precisely 1-3 years experience never more or less, must be an ivy grad or close equiv, must perform well in hazing rituals like the whiteboard interview, must tolerate sweatshop working conditions, etc etc etc. I mean, if you want to hire developers, the USA currently has way too many. Regardless, if you require incredibly narrow "culture" criteria, then there is going to be a massive shortage and opening the floodgates will be useless. Seriously, does anyone think a bro-filled startup would hire, for example, a middle aged black woman immigrated from Senegal with 6 years experience and a non-ivy degree? "Oh I'm sorry, you're overqualified". "I don't think you'd be a culture fit".
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  - toomanybeersies 11y ago
    You can be a developer and not be working at a startup. There's a general shortage of developers. I'm fairly sure that IBM and other large companies are short of developers, and they'd absolutely hire "a middle aged black woman immigrated from Senegal with 6 years experience and a non-ivy degree" Why does everyone act like everybody else wants to work in startups. I don't. I was a nice job, where I come to work at 0900, leave at 1730, and do my own thing outside of work. I'd hazard a guess that 90% of programmer jobs aren't at startups.
peanut_merchant 11y ago
We have a similar problem in Scotland, I know a lot of people would love to have continued living in Scotland but can make >2 times the salary as a developer by making the move down to London. The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this. Granted, this is a move within the UK so it's not really a drain on the UK's economy but it leads to a more London-centric economy and, with an increasingly devolved Scottish parliament, is not good for Scotland.
- pjc50 11y ago
  The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this Are you sure? I made the opposite move for reduced cost of housing (and commuting).
  - peanut_merchant 11y ago
    This definitely depends on the specific job, but in general there are more opportunities for high paying positions and a higher salary ceiling. It also depends on where you want to live within London and the kinds of activities you want to take part in. For me, I've found I have way more disposable income since the move to London as I had a huge salary increase from my previous job in Edinburgh. Although I have much, much less free time and would say I'm generally more unhappy
- mikekchar 11y ago
  What's really crazy is that salaries in London aren't that high (unless you are in the financial sector). I am constantly astonished by the low salaries (for qualified programmers) offered in most parts of Britain. I suspect that you could actually get away with building a consulting firm in the country side and getting companies to offshore work from the US.
  - pwm 11y ago
    I'm not familiar with how things in the US are, but in the UK and specifically in London a lot of senior tech people do contract work which pays considerably more than permanent positions.
zeemonkee3 11y ago
Is the question that Canadian companies genuinely can't pay more, or just that they won't, for whatever reason?
- kspaans 11y ago
  Or maybe that Canadians are willing to work for less? (I remember reading an article that auto manufacturers charge more for the same cars in Canada simply because Canadians will pay more.)
  - zeemonkee3 11y ago
    Good point. Perhaps Americans are better negotiators, and haggling over price/salary "isn't done" in Canada (I know nothing about Canadian culture, but fascinated about the possible effects of culture on an economy).
    - mywittyname 11y ago
      This isn't done in America very much either. We have a white list of things that are appropriate to haggle price on (cars, houses, things on craigslist), but everything else is basically, "wait for sales."
  - justinhj 11y ago
    Local salaries are driven by supply and demand. Tech workers in Vancouver are paid very well compared to other workers in the city. If all tech workers suddenly demanded 20% raises I guess it would happen, but at lowered profit margin for the employers who may end up relocating.
- josephdviviano 11y ago
  Well, in the case of Toronto, I make a better salary relative to the cost of living (all things considered -- rent, health care, insurance) than I could make in SF or NY at the moment. Taxes in Cali aren't that different from Ontario, but the cost of living is nuts (and for the most part astonishingly suburban). Even if I could get slightly more money, I'd lose a lot of quality of life because my entire network is here. Personally, the idea of dropping my entire life for a pay cheque would necessitate a substantial increase in pay. I think companies pay what the market will bear, and enough people feel the same way I do.
mathattack 11y ago
According to the article real estate costs in Vancouver are half that of San Francisco. Are salaries half too?
- sndean 11y ago
  Based on some quick Googling and Glassdoor, it looks like average salaries are ~110k vs. ~80k. The cost of rent in San Francisco looks to be ~190% higher. Not sure how well those figures line up with reality, though.
  - kspaans 11y ago
    Metro Vancouver (2800km^2) is quite a bit bigger than SF (600km^2), so you may want to include rents in other outlying Bay Area cities.
  - imaginenore 11y ago
    Most people here make way above average, and that's when differences increase dramatically. In the US I make close to $300k. In Europe, and London in particular, I get offered under 80k EUR.
    - woah 11y ago
      "Most people make way above average"?
      - ovis 11y ago
        The GP claims most people on HN, which seems likely.
      - imaginenore 11y ago
        Wow, nice quoting technique you've got.
- Serow225 11y ago
  That estimate of real-estate/rent cost for Vancouver seems low to me.
forgetsusername 11y ago
>Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left. This is what young people do; they adventure. Then, many times, they come back to their roots to settle down. I'm sure there're a few people around these parts with anecdata regarding the joys of finding housing and raising a family in the SF Bay Area.
- de_Selby 11y ago
  Anecdata is my new favorite word.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  How will they come back if there isn't a tech scene waiting for them?
  - sospep 11y ago
    There will be a tech scene, the Vancouver portion of that scene may 1 day be smaller than what it is now.
- lewisl9029 11y ago
  > This is what young people do; they adventure. I think this is a rather unfair, and possibly dangerous, attitude, to simply dismiss this phenomenon as typical young people "adventuring". Is it really adventuring if it's a decision made after countless hours of carefully weighing different employment options and coming to the conclusion that the US offers far more opportunities and far better rewards for our careers? I have nothing but anecdotes to support that the brain drain is actually happening at any significant scale, but it's certainly not difficult to imagine why young people who are offered a US position would come to these same conclusions, given the sorry state of the Canadian tech industry today. RE: Settling down. Seattle, which is a 3 hour drive from Vancouver, offers about double the average Vancouver salary with comparable housing prices. Needless to say, I'm not planning on going back until the situation improves dramatically.
kspaans 11y ago
Disclaimer: grew up in Ontario, studied at UWaterloo, then worked at BB, then worked in London, UK for 2 years, and now moving to Silicon Valley on a TN visa. I wouldn't worry _too_ much about the brain drain. Sure the US is more lucrative for young people, but I would say Canada is more lucrative for families. Consider the public schools in Canada vs in the US, and cost of a UW degree vs a comparable university degree in the US. I don't think that most young Canadians who move to the US will stay there permanently.
- restalis 11y ago
  So the consolation is what? That although people will flee to spend their best years elsewhere and sell their potential there at least they'll come back to Canada so their younglings will benefit as they did from the better formative conditions?
- guyzero 11y ago
  Nope. I left Canada 8 years ago with two school-age kids who are now finishing high school. They'll probably go back to Canada for university, but honestly higher pay solves a lot of problems.
wingsonfire 11y ago
Exactly same issue with India. India has tons of IT Company and Government invests a lot in education.. obviously pay is more in US but I think it is also environment. That makes me wonder what has US done right to remain talent magnet
- ameen 11y ago
  The issue in India is that our IT Companies are way overhyped. None of them are doing well financially, all of them barely scraping through each quarter given the Industry at-large stance on outsourcing.
- restalis 11y ago
  "what has US done right to remain talent magnet" It sells itself better. Given the same conditions, an US offer will sound better because the benefits (the pay) will be highlighted while the drawbacks will be presented in a lesser manner or even hidden from view entirely. This is more so when it's about foreigners for which the discrepancy of what's currently available to them and what can be promised is simply staggering. Here is less about the job offers in themselves as means to cover needs as it is with them as advertised goods that generate tremendous amounts of attraction. That's why so many foreign talented individuals are jumping through hops and work on mediocre conditions (which includes the payment) just to be able to dream about the advertised big rewards. I say "to dream" because it works like a lottery, it's a rat race not for a piece of cheese but for a chance to that piece. There is a lot to talked about on this subject, but it's suffice to say that at its root the difference comes from what is a fair trade, which differs greatly from USA in comparison to other places.
rgawdzik 11y ago
Many Canadians return back to Canada; even Drake lives in Toronto :)
mabbo 11y ago
Some do leave, yes. Many come back home later. Amazon opened the Toronto office back in 2011 because there was demand- Canadians who didn't want to live in America anymore- often because of family, friends back home or because they wanted to have kids and not raise them as Americans, culturally. It started with less than 10 people, plus the hiring they were able to do locally. It's now an office of over 300 people, maybe 100 of which transferred from Seattle. And the transfers back haven't slowed much- lots of folks simply want to come back home after a few years. Lots of room here to grow. If Trump wins, I expect we'll need it.
- coroutines 11y ago
  Respectfully, I would not consider Amazon a champion of good working conditions. :>
  - mabbo 11y ago
    Then I would guess you haven't worked as a developer at Amazon. I can talk for hours on what I like and don't like about the culture here, but suffice to say the benefits far outweigh any downsides to me. Or, you can look instead at Google Waterloo, which is a similar-sized office just an hour away from here. Same pattern.
- nacho2sweet 11y ago
  Amazon already has an office on the low here in Vancouver that I heard has upwards of 200 employees and started out the same at 10. I heard it is also used as a staging ground to get people into the US office, and also easier to get foreign workers in Canada than the US.
- ido 11y ago
  As an outsider, respectfully - what is "culturally American" compared to "culturally Canadian"? I've been to both countries several times and I would not be able to tell if a person is American or Canadian unless they told me.
  - sospep 11y ago
greggarious 11y ago
I agree as an American. I've met some super smart Canadians in SF and DC. They all say basically the same thing: most Canadian cities have a high cost of living, and salaries don't always keep up, so much so that even the Bay Area is attractive over Vancouver, since at least there's tons of jobs to choose from and they can optimize on salary with many offers.
mhkhung 11y ago
There is always (your) life cycles. Both myself and my brother Waterloo grads in the 90s. He is in the sv and I stayed in Toronto. My company sent me down to the valley to "help" for a few months (ie living and food all expensed) when I was still fresh. Hated it.. there is nothing at night. So I never have the urge to move there afterwards. Then once you have multiple kids, single income doesn't take you far in the valley even with Google scale salary and mortgage. Plus Amazon has dev centre in downtown Toronto that pays well (not silicon valley well, but Seattle well). (Yes, startups don't pay well in Toronto, but then there are lots of small and profitable sw firms that pays decently). Or just convince google to move that Kitchener office to Toronto, when so many people are commuting anyway.. And then, Vancouver is always a retirement city..
- bryanbuckley 11y ago
  well, that's why so many people commute from SF to the valley, if they want a certain culture. Toronto suburbs seem to go on forever, so not fair to compare Toronto to SV (and not SF or OAK)
deepGem 11y ago
I always thought that Canada's low pay was balanced by their universal healthcare. No ?
- dajohnson89 11y ago
  Healthcare is often provided by the U.S. employer anyways, so I guess it's a wash in that case.
  - restalis 11y ago
    If we're addressing the said healthcare only nominally then yes, it may be discarded from the list of considerations.
tonyarkles 11y ago
It's fascinating, in Saskatoon we've got a pretty neat little tech community. Some people leave, but there's a few companies that identified that people were leaving or contracting remotely and increased their salaries to be sufficiently enticing to keep people here. There's still some people who leave (apparently there was a thing for a while at Apple where people would hang their Saskatchewan license plates on their cubes), but as a whole there's a lot of people staying and making good money here. In the last 10 years or so since I've graduated, entry-level salaries are up probably 50-70% and intermediate-experience salaries around $90-100k/yr aren't unheard of.

kevindeasis 11y ago

The brain drain is definitely a big issue in Canada. On the bright the cost of living will end up being cheaper in Canada if you can get my flow ;)

deleted 11y ago

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drchiu 11y ago

Agreed. It's just so easy to hire in Canada right now due to the strong USD Exchange Rate. Many startups make money in USD and hire in CAD.

imrehg 11y ago

I think that's an issue everywhere in the world. I'm living in Taiwan (not from here originally), and the tech scene is really being hollowed out for years if not decades. The really best, brightest, and most motivated people are already working abroad. "Humiliating" is a strong word, but the more I think about it, the more apt it feels, there should be a lot more reward for the good techies here (there are some left, miraculously!)

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
It is sad when hire salaries for programmers are to be had in mainland China (e.g. Beijing) than Taiwan. There are just tech friendly places and those that are not, with the USA being at the top in terms of pay.
vehementi 11y ago
There will always be people who work for unjustifiably lower salaries
tomjen3 11y ago
Why should there be a reward for staying? The market is screaming "leave" and you don't rich by laughing at what the market says.
lewisl9029 11y ago
Yes, this is definitely not a problem unique to Canada, but I feel the effects are felt a bit more strongly here due to the fact that the barrier to entry into the US for Canadian citizens is practically nonexistent (TN Visa) compared to elsewhere in the world (H-1B).

arvinsim 11y ago

This also happens in third world countries too. I think this is happens when one can easily compare salaries all over the world.

toomanybeersies 11y ago

It's not that Canada or anywhere else in the world has humiliatingly low salaries, it's just that the USA has such strong regulations on skilled immigration, that the wages for developers are artificially inflated. Most other countries, when faced with a shortage of workers in an industry, prioritise them over everyone else. In New Zealand, you need a certain amount of points to immigrate, and being in a high demand industry gives you a whole stack of points. Meanwhile, the USA still runs a lottery for immigration, as well as H1B, which is a lot more restricted than skilled immigration to a lot of other countries.

VLM 11y ago
"the wages for developers are artificially inflated" The wages are reasonable given extremely strict "culture fit" requirements. Must be male, must be white, must be under 30 with precisely 1-3 years experience never more or less, must be an ivy grad or close equiv, must perform well in hazing rituals like the whiteboard interview, must tolerate sweatshop working conditions, etc etc etc. I mean, if you want to hire developers, the USA currently has way too many. Regardless, if you require incredibly narrow "culture" criteria, then there is going to be a massive shortage and opening the floodgates will be useless. Seriously, does anyone think a bro-filled startup would hire, for example, a middle aged black woman immigrated from Senegal with 6 years experience and a non-ivy degree? "Oh I'm sorry, you're overqualified". "I don't think you'd be a culture fit".
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- toomanybeersies 11y ago
  You can be a developer and not be working at a startup. There's a general shortage of developers. I'm fairly sure that IBM and other large companies are short of developers, and they'd absolutely hire "a middle aged black woman immigrated from Senegal with 6 years experience and a non-ivy degree" Why does everyone act like everybody else wants to work in startups. I don't. I was a nice job, where I come to work at 0900, leave at 1730, and do my own thing outside of work. I'd hazard a guess that 90% of programmer jobs aren't at startups.

peanut_merchant 11y ago

We have a similar problem in Scotland, I know a lot of people would love to have continued living in Scotland but can make >2 times the salary as a developer by making the move down to London. The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this. Granted, this is a move within the UK so it's not really a drain on the UK's economy but it leads to a more London-centric economy and, with an increasingly devolved Scottish parliament, is not good for Scotland.

pjc50 11y ago
The cost of living in London is higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this Are you sure? I made the opposite move for reduced cost of housing (and commuting).
- peanut_merchant 11y ago
  This definitely depends on the specific job, but in general there are more opportunities for high paying positions and a higher salary ceiling. It also depends on where you want to live within London and the kinds of activities you want to take part in. For me, I've found I have way more disposable income since the move to London as I had a huge salary increase from my previous job in Edinburgh. Although I have much, much less free time and would say I'm generally more unhappy
mikekchar 11y ago
What's really crazy is that salaries in London aren't that high (unless you are in the financial sector). I am constantly astonished by the low salaries (for qualified programmers) offered in most parts of Britain. I suspect that you could actually get away with building a consulting firm in the country side and getting companies to offshore work from the US.
- pwm 11y ago
  I'm not familiar with how things in the US are, but in the UK and specifically in London a lot of senior tech people do contract work which pays considerably more than permanent positions.

zeemonkee3 11y ago

Is the question that Canadian companies genuinely can't pay more, or just that they won't, for whatever reason?

kspaans 11y ago
Or maybe that Canadians are willing to work for less? (I remember reading an article that auto manufacturers charge more for the same cars in Canada simply because Canadians will pay more.)
- zeemonkee3 11y ago
  Good point. Perhaps Americans are better negotiators, and haggling over price/salary "isn't done" in Canada (I know nothing about Canadian culture, but fascinated about the possible effects of culture on an economy).
  - mywittyname 11y ago
    This isn't done in America very much either. We have a white list of things that are appropriate to haggle price on (cars, houses, things on craigslist), but everything else is basically, "wait for sales."
- justinhj 11y ago
  Local salaries are driven by supply and demand. Tech workers in Vancouver are paid very well compared to other workers in the city. If all tech workers suddenly demanded 20% raises I guess it would happen, but at lowered profit margin for the employers who may end up relocating.
josephdviviano 11y ago
Well, in the case of Toronto, I make a better salary relative to the cost of living (all things considered -- rent, health care, insurance) than I could make in SF or NY at the moment. Taxes in Cali aren't that different from Ontario, but the cost of living is nuts (and for the most part astonishingly suburban). Even if I could get slightly more money, I'd lose a lot of quality of life because my entire network is here. Personally, the idea of dropping my entire life for a pay cheque would necessitate a substantial increase in pay. I think companies pay what the market will bear, and enough people feel the same way I do.

mathattack 11y ago

According to the article real estate costs in Vancouver are half that of San Francisco. Are salaries half too?

sndean 11y ago
Based on some quick Googling and Glassdoor, it looks like average salaries are ~110k vs. ~80k. The cost of rent in San Francisco looks to be ~190% higher. Not sure how well those figures line up with reality, though.
- kspaans 11y ago
  Metro Vancouver (2800km^2) is quite a bit bigger than SF (600km^2), so you may want to include rents in other outlying Bay Area cities.
- imaginenore 11y ago
  Most people here make way above average, and that's when differences increase dramatically. In the US I make close to $300k. In Europe, and London in particular, I get offered under 80k EUR.
  - woah 11y ago
    "Most people make way above average"?
    - ovis 11y ago
      The GP claims most people on HN, which seems likely.
    - imaginenore 11y ago
      Wow, nice quoting technique you've got.
Serow225 11y ago
That estimate of real-estate/rent cost for Vancouver seems low to me.

forgetsusername 11y ago

>Everybody I know from school who were offered the option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left. This is what young people do; they adventure. Then, many times, they come back to their roots to settle down. I'm sure there're a few people around these parts with anecdata regarding the joys of finding housing and raising a family in the SF Bay Area.

de_Selby 11y ago
Anecdata is my new favorite word.
st3v3r 11y ago
How will they come back if there isn't a tech scene waiting for them?
- sospep 11y ago
  There will be a tech scene, the Vancouver portion of that scene may 1 day be smaller than what it is now.
lewisl9029 11y ago
> This is what young people do; they adventure. I think this is a rather unfair, and possibly dangerous, attitude, to simply dismiss this phenomenon as typical young people "adventuring". Is it really adventuring if it's a decision made after countless hours of carefully weighing different employment options and coming to the conclusion that the US offers far more opportunities and far better rewards for our careers? I have nothing but anecdotes to support that the brain drain is actually happening at any significant scale, but it's certainly not difficult to imagine why young people who are offered a US position would come to these same conclusions, given the sorry state of the Canadian tech industry today. RE: Settling down. Seattle, which is a 3 hour drive from Vancouver, offers about double the average Vancouver salary with comparable housing prices. Needless to say, I'm not planning on going back until the situation improves dramatically.

kspaans 11y ago

Disclaimer: grew up in Ontario, studied at UWaterloo, then worked at BB, then worked in London, UK for 2 years, and now moving to Silicon Valley on a TN visa. I wouldn't worry _too_ much about the brain drain. Sure the US is more lucrative for young people, but I would say Canada is more lucrative for families. Consider the public schools in Canada vs in the US, and cost of a UW degree vs a comparable university degree in the US. I don't think that most young Canadians who move to the US will stay there permanently.

restalis 11y ago
So the consolation is what? That although people will flee to spend their best years elsewhere and sell their potential there at least they'll come back to Canada so their younglings will benefit as they did from the better formative conditions?
guyzero 11y ago
Nope. I left Canada 8 years ago with two school-age kids who are now finishing high school. They'll probably go back to Canada for university, but honestly higher pay solves a lot of problems.

wingsonfire 11y ago

Exactly same issue with India. India has tons of IT Company and Government invests a lot in education.. obviously pay is more in US but I think it is also environment. That makes me wonder what has US done right to remain talent magnet

ameen 11y ago
The issue in India is that our IT Companies are way overhyped. None of them are doing well financially, all of them barely scraping through each quarter given the Industry at-large stance on outsourcing.
restalis 11y ago
"what has US done right to remain talent magnet" It sells itself better. Given the same conditions, an US offer will sound better because the benefits (the pay) will be highlighted while the drawbacks will be presented in a lesser manner or even hidden from view entirely. This is more so when it's about foreigners for which the discrepancy of what's currently available to them and what can be promised is simply staggering. Here is less about the job offers in themselves as means to cover needs as it is with them as advertised goods that generate tremendous amounts of attraction. That's why so many foreign talented individuals are jumping through hops and work on mediocre conditions (which includes the payment) just to be able to dream about the advertised big rewards. I say "to dream" because it works like a lottery, it's a rat race not for a piece of cheese but for a chance to that piece. There is a lot to talked about on this subject, but it's suffice to say that at its root the difference comes from what is a fair trade, which differs greatly from USA in comparison to other places.

rgawdzik 11y ago

Many Canadians return back to Canada; even Drake lives in Toronto :)

mabbo 11y ago

Some do leave, yes. Many come back home later. Amazon opened the Toronto office back in 2011 because there was demand- Canadians who didn't want to live in America anymore- often because of family, friends back home or because they wanted to have kids and not raise them as Americans, culturally. It started with less than 10 people, plus the hiring they were able to do locally. It's now an office of over 300 people, maybe 100 of which transferred from Seattle. And the transfers back haven't slowed much- lots of folks simply want to come back home after a few years. Lots of room here to grow. If Trump wins, I expect we'll need it.

coroutines 11y ago
Respectfully, I would not consider Amazon a champion of good working conditions. :>
- mabbo 11y ago
  Then I would guess you haven't worked as a developer at Amazon. I can talk for hours on what I like and don't like about the culture here, but suffice to say the benefits far outweigh any downsides to me. Or, you can look instead at Google Waterloo, which is a similar-sized office just an hour away from here. Same pattern.
nacho2sweet 11y ago
Amazon already has an office on the low here in Vancouver that I heard has upwards of 200 employees and started out the same at 10. I heard it is also used as a staging ground to get people into the US office, and also easier to get foreign workers in Canada than the US.
ido 11y ago
As an outsider, respectfully - what is "culturally American" compared to "culturally Canadian"? I've been to both countries several times and I would not be able to tell if a person is American or Canadian unless they told me.
- sospep 11y ago

greggarious 11y ago

I agree as an American. I've met some super smart Canadians in SF and DC. They all say basically the same thing: most Canadian cities have a high cost of living, and salaries don't always keep up, so much so that even the Bay Area is attractive over Vancouver, since at least there's tons of jobs to choose from and they can optimize on salary with many offers.

mhkhung 11y ago

There is always (your) life cycles. Both myself and my brother Waterloo grads in the 90s. He is in the sv and I stayed in Toronto. My company sent me down to the valley to "help" for a few months (ie living and food all expensed) when I was still fresh. Hated it.. there is nothing at night. So I never have the urge to move there afterwards. Then once you have multiple kids, single income doesn't take you far in the valley even with Google scale salary and mortgage. Plus Amazon has dev centre in downtown Toronto that pays well (not silicon valley well, but Seattle well). (Yes, startups don't pay well in Toronto, but then there are lots of small and profitable sw firms that pays decently). Or just convince google to move that Kitchener office to Toronto, when so many people are commuting anyway.. And then, Vancouver is always a retirement city..

bryanbuckley 11y ago
well, that's why so many people commute from SF to the valley, if they want a certain culture. Toronto suburbs seem to go on forever, so not fair to compare Toronto to SV (and not SF or OAK)

deepGem 11y ago

I always thought that Canada's low pay was balanced by their universal healthcare. No ?

dajohnson89 11y ago
Healthcare is often provided by the U.S. employer anyways, so I guess it's a wash in that case.
- restalis 11y ago
  If we're addressing the said healthcare only nominally then yes, it may be discarded from the list of considerations.

tonyarkles 11y ago

It's fascinating, in Saskatoon we've got a pretty neat little tech community. Some people leave, but there's a few companies that identified that people were leaving or contracting remotely and increased their salaries to be sufficiently enticing to keep people here. There's still some people who leave (apparently there was a thing for a while at Apple where people would hang their Saskatchewan license plates on their cubes), but as a whole there's a lot of people staying and making good money here. In the last 10 years or so since I've graduated, entry-level salaries are up probably 50-70% and intermediate-experience salaries around $90-100k/yr aren't unheard of.