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Waterloo grad here. Seeing pretty much the same thing. Really not difficult to imagine why Canadian tech companies have mostly stopped being competitive on the

Waterloo grad here. Seeing pretty much the same thing. Really not difficult to imagine why Canadian tech companies have mostly stopped being competitive on the global stage, considering most of the talent they have access to at these pitiful salaries are essentially left-overs. Unfortunately, I honestly don't see how the situation can improve. It's a classic tragedy of the commons situation. Companies act in self-interest by paying as low as they possibly can, with no regards for the damage being done to the Canadian talent pool, and have little incentive to do otherwise until most of their peers do the same.

086421357909764 10y ago
Interestingly this is almost the same commentary for every "next silicon valley" city we read about here. I think sometimes people are trying to cash in on the ideal before it's even been formed. Why is everyone so rushed to be the next SV anyway? Why not be the best Toronto, or whatever city of focus that happens to support entrepreneurship through whatever programs. I feel like being a next SV town is sort of like how every un-employed person I know is the CEO of a startup : / .
- lewisl9029 10y ago
  > Interestingly this is almost the same commentary for every "next silicon valley" city we read about here. That may be true, but you have to realize even the other "next silicon valley" contenders in the US can easily offer more than double the salary to developers compared to Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Toronto is not even playing in the same league in that aspect.
  - 086421357909764 10y ago
    :*(
  - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
    Even worse than the salary is the attitude at Toronto area startups. Elitist "you-should-feel-so-lucky-you're-at-a-startup-now-work-for-peanuts"... Leaving the Toronto ad-tech startup I was at to work (remote) for a NYC ad-tech startup (well, recent startup and growing) was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got lucky to work for the best founders and senior management I have ever had in my career.
    - Apocryphon 10y ago
      Well, sounds like that got that part of Silicon Valley right.
  - tensor 10y ago
    Outside of silicon valley and New York salaries in the US are not actually that great. According to glassdoor the average junior developer is actually only 60k when you consider the whole country. Junior software engineer on payscale is median 55k. Also, in some place like San Fransisco the cost of living is going to be 2x or more, so that 2-3x higher salary will end up translating into maybe 1.2x. Salaries in Toronto are still low, but not nearly as much as some people make it out to be.
    - lewisl9029 10y ago
      The US is a big place, so if you look at it as a whole it's definitely not going to look as attractive. If you look specifically at the tech hubs however, even if we don't account for the 2 biggest US tech hubs, SV and NYC, places like Seattle and Boston still have much higher median salary and salary potential compared to the two biggest Canadian tech hubs, Toronto and Vancouver, and with comparable cost of living to boot. The AngelList salaries data confirms this at least when it comes to the startup job sector: https://angel.co/salaries https://angel.co/salaries
      - tensor 10y ago
        Sampling a bunch of the jobs listed for Seattle shows that most are senior level. Senior level in Toronto is less on average, but it's definitely not half as much in comparable places. One notable exception is Amazon, who starts people out of school at 90k. This is definitely an outlier. If you can get into Amazon out of school, might be worth taking advantage of it.
        lewisl9029 10y ago
        > Sampling a bunch of the jobs listed for Seattle shows that most are senior level. Senior level in Toronto is less on average, but it's definitely not half as much in comparable places. I fail to see the value in making a distinction in terms of seniority unless you have good reasons to believe why the Seattle postings on AngelList might be skewed towards senior level to a higher degree than the Toronto postings, but your point is certainly valid. If we look at the aggregate data, Toronto and Vancouver have average salaries of $61K and $59K respectively, and Seattle and Boston, $92K and $91K. That's closer to 1.5x, so "more than double" was definitely a bit hyperbolic, but this vicious death spiral (of low Canadian salaries -> brain drain into the US -> under-competing Canadian companies -> rinse and repeat) has been taking quite a toll on the Canadian tech sector, and has serious implications for its future, so I'd rather err on the side of hyperbole over understatement because I have a vested interest in this matter as a Canadian citizen and tech worker.
- aji 10y ago
  agreed. and I agree with many people out here in Seattle, that I'd really rather not see the city become "the next Silicon Valley". I'd much prefer Seattle become the best it can be, by itself, without needing to draw on Silicon Valley (or anywhere else, for that matter) for guidance and inspiration. that's the way I'm sure a lot of people here and in other cities feel about their own towns.
- megablast 10y ago
  > Why not be the best Toronto Toronto is already the best Toronto in the world, although it was a close competition last year.
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    With whom
gdilla 10y ago
This happened before in the late 90s. Before the first bubble. What happened then was some slingshot effect, when Canadians go to SF and make $200K for 10 years, and still can't afford a house and are faced with mediocre schools unless they want to commute (which they don't) they may come back.
- cmrdporcupine 10y ago
  come back to Toronto where they also can't afford a home? Or live in the suburbs of the GTA and slog it through some of the worst traffic in North America for two hours each way?
  - kmanraj 10y ago
    SF Bay Area isn't that much different from GTA. High housing costs, high cost of living, long commutes. Although the big difference is that the high salary somewhat makes up for it (although whether or not the salary is actually high enough is debatable).
    - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
      Yep the salaries in the Bay Area are from what I have seen about double what one would get in the GTA. The housing prices are insane, but a nice three bedroom in Toronto that is transit accessible to the downtown is just shy of a million $ now, or over it. And the salaries are far lower. So yeah, a lot of talent will just go south. Or get lucky like me and go work for Google in Waterloo. The actual Toronto employment market is pretty yuck.
      - pyre 10y ago
        > a nice three bedroom in Toronto that is transit accessible to the downtown is just shy of a million $ now I own a house that is on two bus routes, and it takes me 45 ~ 50 minutes to get downtown (specifically work which is right downtown), and it's not even close to that price. [That said, I looked into moving to another neighbourhood with worse transit access that was not that far away, and the real estate agent was selling it with a "crap" house for ~$800K with the idea that you would spend money on top of that to tear the existing house down and rebuild another one on top of it.]

086421357909764 10y ago

Interestingly this is almost the same commentary for every "next silicon valley" city we read about here. I think sometimes people are trying to cash in on the ideal before it's even been formed. Why is everyone so rushed to be the next SV anyway? Why not be the best Toronto, or whatever city of focus that happens to support entrepreneurship through whatever programs. I feel like being a next SV town is sort of like how every un-employed person I know is the CEO of a startup : / .

lewisl9029 10y ago
> Interestingly this is almost the same commentary for every "next silicon valley" city we read about here. That may be true, but you have to realize even the other "next silicon valley" contenders in the US can easily offer more than double the salary to developers compared to Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Toronto is not even playing in the same league in that aspect.
- 086421357909764 10y ago
  :*(
- cmrdporcupine 10y ago
  Even worse than the salary is the attitude at Toronto area startups. Elitist "you-should-feel-so-lucky-you're-at-a-startup-now-work-for-peanuts"... Leaving the Toronto ad-tech startup I was at to work (remote) for a NYC ad-tech startup (well, recent startup and growing) was the best thing that ever happened to me. Got lucky to work for the best founders and senior management I have ever had in my career.
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    Well, sounds like that got that part of Silicon Valley right.
- tensor 10y ago
  Outside of silicon valley and New York salaries in the US are not actually that great. According to glassdoor the average junior developer is actually only 60k when you consider the whole country. Junior software engineer on payscale is median 55k. Also, in some place like San Fransisco the cost of living is going to be 2x or more, so that 2-3x higher salary will end up translating into maybe 1.2x. Salaries in Toronto are still low, but not nearly as much as some people make it out to be.
  - lewisl9029 10y ago
    The US is a big place, so if you look at it as a whole it's definitely not going to look as attractive. If you look specifically at the tech hubs however, even if we don't account for the 2 biggest US tech hubs, SV and NYC, places like Seattle and Boston still have much higher median salary and salary potential compared to the two biggest Canadian tech hubs, Toronto and Vancouver, and with comparable cost of living to boot. The AngelList salaries data confirms this at least when it comes to the startup job sector: https://angel.co/salaries https://angel.co/salaries
    - tensor 10y ago
      Sampling a bunch of the jobs listed for Seattle shows that most are senior level. Senior level in Toronto is less on average, but it's definitely not half as much in comparable places. One notable exception is Amazon, who starts people out of school at 90k. This is definitely an outlier. If you can get into Amazon out of school, might be worth taking advantage of it.
      - lewisl9029 10y ago
        > Sampling a bunch of the jobs listed for Seattle shows that most are senior level. Senior level in Toronto is less on average, but it's definitely not half as much in comparable places. I fail to see the value in making a distinction in terms of seniority unless you have good reasons to believe why the Seattle postings on AngelList might be skewed towards senior level to a higher degree than the Toronto postings, but your point is certainly valid. If we look at the aggregate data, Toronto and Vancouver have average salaries of $61K and $59K respectively, and Seattle and Boston, $92K and $91K. That's closer to 1.5x, so "more than double" was definitely a bit hyperbolic, but this vicious death spiral (of low Canadian salaries -> brain drain into the US -> under-competing Canadian companies -> rinse and repeat) has been taking quite a toll on the Canadian tech sector, and has serious implications for its future, so I'd rather err on the side of hyperbole over understatement because I have a vested interest in this matter as a Canadian citizen and tech worker.
aji 10y ago
agreed. and I agree with many people out here in Seattle, that I'd really rather not see the city become "the next Silicon Valley". I'd much prefer Seattle become the best it can be, by itself, without needing to draw on Silicon Valley (or anywhere else, for that matter) for guidance and inspiration. that's the way I'm sure a lot of people here and in other cities feel about their own towns.
megablast 10y ago
> Why not be the best Toronto Toronto is already the best Toronto in the world, although it was a close competition last year.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  With whom

gdilla 10y ago

This happened before in the late 90s. Before the first bubble. What happened then was some slingshot effect, when Canadians go to SF and make $200K for 10 years, and still can't afford a house and are faced with mediocre schools unless they want to commute (which they don't) they may come back.

cmrdporcupine 10y ago
come back to Toronto where they also can't afford a home? Or live in the suburbs of the GTA and slog it through some of the worst traffic in North America for two hours each way?
- kmanraj 10y ago
  SF Bay Area isn't that much different from GTA. High housing costs, high cost of living, long commutes. Although the big difference is that the high salary somewhat makes up for it (although whether or not the salary is actually high enough is debatable).
  - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
    Yep the salaries in the Bay Area are from what I have seen about double what one would get in the GTA. The housing prices are insane, but a nice three bedroom in Toronto that is transit accessible to the downtown is just shy of a million $ now, or over it. And the salaries are far lower. So yeah, a lot of talent will just go south. Or get lucky like me and go work for Google in Waterloo. The actual Toronto employment market is pretty yuck.
    - pyre 10y ago
      > a nice three bedroom in Toronto that is transit accessible to the downtown is just shy of a million $ now I own a house that is on two bus routes, and it takes me 45 ~ 50 minutes to get downtown (specifically work which is right downtown), and it's not even close to that price. [That said, I looked into moving to another neighbourhood with worse transit access that was not that far away, and the real estate agent was selling it with a "crap" house for ~$800K with the idea that you would spend money on top of that to tear the existing house down and rebuild another one on top of it.]