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I am not sure this is going to happen. Calgary is a very conservative city, very little public transportation, a terrible cab system (and a city council who opp

I am not sure this is going to happen. Calgary is a very conservative city, very little public transportation, a terrible cab system (and a city council who opposes alternatives), terrible road network (especially crowchild) no nightlife and very conservative drug and alcohol laws. Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd), so the good ones just move the the USA or work remotely. I don't see Calgary becoming a booming tech scene anytime soon.

wesd 10y ago
>Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian I have to disagree with that statement. As an example, here is a system admin job posting by City of Calgary. The pay range is $77,891 - 117,609 per annum https://recruiting.calgary.ca/psc/pdhr/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL?Page=HRS_CE_JOB_DTL&JobOpeningId=207371&PostingSeq=1&SiteId=1 https://recruiting.calgary.ca/psc/pdhr/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_H...
- maerF0x0 10y ago
  Those city and CBE jobs are few and far between and usually pay much higher than private jobs. The 77k is starting wage more or less no matter what seniority and rises with yrs of service in the union. I think most intermediate / senior engineers can make 75k a year, but starting is very low, like 50k.
  - TheGeminon 10y ago
    That seems really wrong to me. I work for TELUS and starting wages for entry level programming positions is around the 55k-70k, and then for more intermediate positions (something like 5 years experience) you are looking at 70-100K
msbarnett 10y ago
> Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd) That sounds low to me. Rates in Edmonton are considerably higher and I doubt Calgary skews that much lower. Hand-wavy, since it varies by exact variety of software you're doing, but I'd say that was more than 20k+ below market for intermediate-senior exp. Still lower than the US, of course.
schwap 10y ago
> Calgary is a very conservative city Economically? Sure. Socially? no way.
- na85 10y ago
  >Sure. Socially? no way. Compared to what? Calgary is more conservative than Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, and Victoria. Perhaps it's more liberal than Red Deer or Kelowna, but that's not saying much at all. It's also just an awful place to live. The urban sprawl makes public transit pale in comparison even to Vancouver which also has really bad transit. It's an 80 dollar cab ride to the airport which is like an hour and a half from the downtown. There's the Stampede, I guess, but frankly I've never found the culture in Calgary much to write home about either. If you like pickup trucks and imported American culture, then sure, Calgary sounds great.
  - beloch 10y ago
    Calgary is demographically young and cosmopolitan. The average Calgarian came from somewhere else in Canada. Their political views reflect this. When Nenshi was elected, Toronto's media had a massive freak-out over the fact that he's a Muslim. This did not happen in Calgary because Calgarians didn't view his choice of religion as being pertinent to his job. Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford. Calgary's CTrain has the third highest annual ridership among North America's light rail systems [1]. The bus system is lagging behind, but the LRT system is being expanded. The airport is a 22 min drive from downtown under normal circumstances. There is traffic congestion during peak travel times, but absolutely nothing like in Toronto or Vancouver. If all you know about Calgary's cultural scene is the Stampede, one has to wonder if you've even been to Calgary. In short, thanks for slagging a city you clearly know nothing about. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_light_rail_systems_by_ridership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_light_r...
    - na85 10y ago
      >Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford. I'm not from Toronto but the fact is that the barely-literate, anti-intellectual, suburban outlying population of places like (edit) Etobicoke elected Rob Ford. edit: ah yes, the old reddit-style downvote because the truth hurts. The simple fact is the man was a train wreck, and his supporters are basically Tea Party North.
slavik81 10y ago
> Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian That's significantly less than I was making as a software engineer in Calgary. Maybe I was lucky, but I suspect your numbers are wrong.

wesd 10y ago

>Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian I have to disagree with that statement. As an example, here is a system admin job posting by City of Calgary. The pay range is $77,891 - 117,609 per annum https://recruiting.calgary.ca/psc/pdhr/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_CE.GBL?Page=HRS_CE_JOB_DTL&JobOpeningId=207371&PostingSeq=1&SiteId=1 https://recruiting.calgary.ca/psc/pdhr/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/HRS_H...

maerF0x0 10y ago
Those city and CBE jobs are few and far between and usually pay much higher than private jobs. The 77k is starting wage more or less no matter what seniority and rises with yrs of service in the union. I think most intermediate / senior engineers can make 75k a year, but starting is very low, like 50k.
- TheGeminon 10y ago
  That seems really wrong to me. I work for TELUS and starting wages for entry level programming positions is around the 55k-70k, and then for more intermediate positions (something like 5 years experience) you are looking at 70-100K

msbarnett 10y ago

> Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd) That sounds low to me. Rates in Edmonton are considerably higher and I doubt Calgary skews that much lower. Hand-wavy, since it varies by exact variety of software you're doing, but I'd say that was more than 20k+ below market for intermediate-senior exp. Still lower than the US, of course.

schwap 10y ago

> Calgary is a very conservative city Economically? Sure. Socially? no way.

na85 10y ago
>Sure. Socially? no way. Compared to what? Calgary is more conservative than Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, and Victoria. Perhaps it's more liberal than Red Deer or Kelowna, but that's not saying much at all. It's also just an awful place to live. The urban sprawl makes public transit pale in comparison even to Vancouver which also has really bad transit. It's an 80 dollar cab ride to the airport which is like an hour and a half from the downtown. There's the Stampede, I guess, but frankly I've never found the culture in Calgary much to write home about either. If you like pickup trucks and imported American culture, then sure, Calgary sounds great.
- beloch 10y ago
  Calgary is demographically young and cosmopolitan. The average Calgarian came from somewhere else in Canada. Their political views reflect this. When Nenshi was elected, Toronto's media had a massive freak-out over the fact that he's a Muslim. This did not happen in Calgary because Calgarians didn't view his choice of religion as being pertinent to his job. Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford. Calgary's CTrain has the third highest annual ridership among North America's light rail systems [1]. The bus system is lagging behind, but the LRT system is being expanded. The airport is a 22 min drive from downtown under normal circumstances. There is traffic congestion during peak travel times, but absolutely nothing like in Toronto or Vancouver. If all you know about Calgary's cultural scene is the Stampede, one has to wonder if you've even been to Calgary. In short, thanks for slagging a city you clearly know nothing about. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_light_rail_systems_by_ridership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_light_r...
  - na85 10y ago
    >Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford. I'm not from Toronto but the fact is that the barely-literate, anti-intellectual, suburban outlying population of places like (edit) Etobicoke elected Rob Ford. edit: ah yes, the old reddit-style downvote because the truth hurts. The simple fact is the man was a train wreck, and his supporters are basically Tea Party North.

slavik81 10y ago

> Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian That's significantly less than I was making as a software engineer in Calgary. Maybe I was lucky, but I suspect your numbers are wrong.