9 ms·

Canada’s tech sector is hemorrhaging talent [audio]

79 points by yannickt 10y ago

canistr 10y ago
I listened to the podcast yesterday and while the premise is correct, the episode is actually lousy at explaining any of it, discussing anything that happened at the meetings with "leaders", and ultimately had the wrong people discussing the topic. This ended sounding like a platform for Dan Debow to talk about whatever agenda he wanted with little REAL pushback from the host. The only reassuring thing about this podcast was the brief mention that Ted Livingston (of Kik) was at those talks with so-called "leaders of Canada". I mean, do we really expect the likes of Galen Weston, Magna International, and the like to really talk about innovation or tech? Other than Kik, which of those companies would any person on HN really be interested in working at?
- dmix 10y ago
  This is sadly how policy decisions get made in government. The smart people building stuff are usually busy building stuff and are turned off of events with titles like "leaders of Canada". At the same time, a lot of the successful Canadian founders, who would have time for this, found success via acquisition by US companies and aren't around to attend. I'm curious if there are articles about Canada hemorrhaging math/finance talent to New York? Or is this just something we perpetually complain about in tech as if talent/industry centralization wasn't a phenomenon in almost every big new market in history. All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. That's how we can tell if their good or not, usually. And nothings wrong with that. No one complained when Drake signed to a US label when his new career took off...
  - hinkley 10y ago
    Maybe it's just a continuation of the fine tradition in software management to blame everybody but yourself for the company's problems.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    The USA has many natural advantages against Canada when it comes to 'exceptionalism' - mostly scale and clusters. It's almost impossible to do anything A++ in Canada because it gets sucked into the US. So Canada is a great place for the 99%, but for anything that's exceptional, it's the US. The way market economies work 'exceptional' companies suck up most of the profits and surpluses ... So it's a perennial problem for the talented. But again, for most people, Canada is a better place if you can hack the weather.
  - indlebe 10y ago
    >All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. Not the Tragically Hip. But they always seemed happy with that.
    - Naga 10y ago
      You know, I think it's a myth that they aren't popular there. They're no Rolling Stones, but they still fill concert halls and festivals! But they never sold their souls to the States and they seem very proud of it.
iamshs 10y ago
When I was searching for jobs, could not just believe the startup offers. $35K - $45K in Vancouver. I would have felt like a slave working for that kind of money in Vancouver. Albertan co-op guy would easily earn double that. I have not researched other nuances of this situation, but it put me off that scene entirely. Unfortunately, great white north will keep bleeding talent.
- jschrf 10y ago
  What kind of role were you seeking? Even without context, those numbers immediately jump out as "....what?"
  - iamshs 10y ago
    They were all coding/programming roles. I am not from comp sci, was fresh out of uni and only had limited programming experience. I asked the recruiters why are they extending me the offers at all then?
    - sdm 10y ago
      Okay, then that's not as surprising. If you have a comp sci or engineering background it would be different. Breaking into the industry is hard without the correct education background. Until you have experience companies will lowball you to compensate for the risk involved in hiring you. This is the same pretty much anywhere.
      - iamshs 10y ago
        I have engineering background, just not comp sci one. In the end, I made six figures and some hefty bonuses right out of school. Don't offer me the job, but don't try to lowball me.
    - hluska 10y ago
      They likely knew they would have to train you in multiple areas, but liked your hustle and made an offer based on the cost of training you. At least, that's what I'd do - if you have limited experience, I'd need to teach you how to write code, how to work with code reviews, versioning control, etc, etc.
Danieru 10y ago
If you want canadian talent you can get it, but you cannot pretend you deserve it. You must work for it.That means identifying talent in university before the Microsoft or Google recruiters get ahold of their resume. It means finding developers before the skill is obvious for the big corps. Then you treat them well and have them start their career before graduation. During my university the local division of Coverity did a good job of this. They sponsored the programming club events. They sent real engineers to every career fair. They gave internships to 2 years. They kept on skilled programmers throughout the year. One guy I knew got married and bought a house while working part time there even before graduation. I would say that company grabbed the majority of the high-performing nice-to-work-with students from my year. The only ones they did not get was me (video game programming japan), and my friend (C++ standard library programming at google). Or you could whine about why you deserve to get Canada's best at insulting wages. Maybe that will work.
- SuperPaintMan 10y ago
  >Or you could whine about why you deserve to get Canada's best at insulting wages. Maybe that will work. Had a opportunity with a Ontario based startup, their starting package was 40k and they wanted me to relocate. When pushing for a better salary, I was told this was the best they could offer. Fucking insulting wage for a backend developer (Go/Appengine)
  - flamedoge 10y ago
    Again and again, why don't Canadian companies understand that CS graduate can easily earn 100k in the states and can actually afford a house? How can they offer what they offer and stay competitive?
    - yazaddaruvala 10y ago
      I grew up in Vancouver, went to high-school there, whet to UBC there. My family is in Vancouver. The majority of my friends are in Vancouver. I own real-estate in Vancouver. I eventually want to move back to Vancouver. I can safely say I love Vancouver. However, I currently live in Seattle. Why? The money! As frustrating as it is to admit, and as uninteresting as it is, the simple answer is usually the most appropriate: Canadian companies like their tier-2 low wage talent (and some tier-1 low wage talent - who prefer Canada). Its good enough for their usecases, and it gets the job done. Meanwhile, they like to complain that they can't hire tier-1 low wage talent. That is the only answer I can come up with!
deleted 10y ago
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theGimp 10y ago
Any Canadian developer will tell you the problem is the abysmal pay that Canadian companies offer. I love my country and would love nothing more than to stay here, but when moving south of the border means a 50% bump, it's hard to stay in Canada. It doesn't help that most Canadian CEOs talk about the issue as if they're entitled to Canadian graduates working for them without making any attempt at matching US pay packages.
- bobdole1234 10y ago
  50%? I'm just shy of 4x.
  - theGimp 10y ago
    Maybe I'll get there someday :-) I should have mentioned I'm still a student. I'm sure that for a senior developer, the difference is significantly larger.
    - keithwhor 10y ago
      You will. If you're at UW and/or have a competitive portfolio you can expect entry-level US (read: Bay Area) offers to be about 2x Canadian ones in terms total comp if you ignore exchange rate (more if you include it). If you're good, that's going to scale to about 3-5x what you get in Canada after a few years. And don't let anybody get on you about the cost of living. You can live pretty inexpensively in San Francisco, as you can in any city, if you're willing to make some sacrifices (roommates, transit).
  - pyre 10y ago
    ... with people talking about offers for mid-level developers in Toronto / Vancouver being in the $70k - $110k range, are you claiming that you can pull in $280k - $440k for a software development position? If not, then I would think that this pay difference converges the more experience you have, no?
    - acchow 10y ago
ahmeni 10y ago
I grew up in Vancouver and miss it daily but none of the salaries would allow me to purchase a house anywhere closer than New Westminster. Instead now I live in Sydney, Aus and have the same cost of living but a salary that's scaled appropriately.
- iamshs 10y ago
  Hell man, I even miss Edmonton. Haha. I also moved to Australia.
robertelder 10y ago
A huge factor that I don't see any comments about yet, is the exchange rate. Look at this chart of the USD/CAD in the past 3 years: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=10Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=10Y A 35-40% swing in the purchasing power of the currency is a pretty big deal.
- ahmeni 10y ago
  This was still an issue when the currencies were closer to parity but the swing only makes things worse.
  - cylinder 10y ago
    It'll never stop being an issue. You're in tech you go to SV, you're in entertainment you go to LA, you're in international criminal law you go to The Hague, you're in particle smashing you go to Europe, you're into iron ore mining you go to Perth, etc. Countries will just blow tax money trying to change things. Focus on your core competencies.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      What are Canada's core competencies? Where does it have a comparative advantage?
      - aianus 10y ago
        Potash, diamonds, gold, seal fur, oil sands. We basically dig things out of the ground and sell them to the US, it's really lame :(
        wstrange 10y ago
        You forgot maple syrup. We have even have a strategic supply of the stuff
      - Tyr42 10y ago
bishnu 10y ago
When I was searching for entry level SWE jobs in Canada in 2011 after abruptly dropping out of grad school, I applied to ~50 positions and interviewed at around a dozen (public+private sector) in Vancouver + Alberta, all paying $50K-$60K. A year later, Google swooped in with an offer that quintupled my compensation. The thing that struck me about it most was the supposedly-intense Google programmer interviews were actually far less difficult than most of the all-day interviews I did for Canadian institutions. I was a bit outraged that these interviews could be so tough for such meager compensation, especially given the cost of living in Vancouver. I was surprised they were able to get away with it, and it looks like it's starting to bite them in the ass, for which I am glad. Edit: The specific places I would name, if anyone's curious, are Zymeworks and SAP in Vancouver, as well as staff research positions at UBC, University of Calgary, and the BC Cancer Agency.
- iamshs 10y ago
  I am a UofA graduate. Back when oilpatch was throwing big money at companies, me and my manager identified a solid start-up opportunity. I contacted two UofA comp sci guys, and they were not willing to come onboard because they were going to US. Right out of the gate, we could afford five six figure salaries, but we had to abide by some restrictions. I tried a lot to build that startup, but we just could not. As the comment above mentioned, get to them before Google, MS or Intel does; and cultivate a relationship.
- im_down_w_otp 10y ago
  You make $250k-$300k/yr for an entry-level software engineering job?
  - acchow 10y ago
    He did say it was a Google offer, and definitely includes RSUs.
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    yeah, sure. for google/apple/facebook/etc. 150k cash + 100k+ equity and bonus compensation sounds about right. on a good year, add another 100k. on a really good year, add another 250k. on a really really good year, add a couple million. who do you think is buying all these houses? the first step to making this kind of money is not settling for anything less, because opportunity is the biggest cost. when was the last time you turned down 150k to wait for a better offer?
karma_vaccum123 10y ago
Grew up there, went to Queen's, but after one crappy job in Ottawa in 1995, I left for the Bay Area for good. Now when I go back I'm struck by the high prices, high taxes, and a general (and sadly very Canadian) aversion to risk. I used to brag about Canada and honestly felt it was a better place to live...I don't think that any more.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US. It's not a good place for talent.
  - rublev 10y ago
    >Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US. No it's not. Most youth have zero dreams related to property ownership, as everything near the core and cities that are near the core are prohibitively expensive. There is a general apathy and malaise here. "Just move outside of the city" they say, to suburbs that are also priced 500k+, and just far enough to only have to spend an hour and a half commuting to your city job.
    - branchless 10y ago
      That is a boomer problem. I'm afraid they have no desire in the main to comprehend the difficulties the young face.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      Having lived all over the world, all over Canada, and in Texas and Cali for many years, I can assure you that Canada is pretty good. You have clearly never lived in the Silicon Valley if you're talking about housing. Housing in the Valley is beyond unaffordable. A choice job at Google and you still won't be buying a home. You're probably young, and single. Your class has always struggled with home ownership. Most couples can afford to get in on the housing ladder by buying and apartment, and in some year, buy a home. That said - Toronto and Vancouver are distorted markets right now. Everywhere else in Canada is pretty normal and home ownership is similar to most places in the US that are not NYC/SF.
Terr_ 10y ago
Amusingly, I've been informed that my company's corporate overlords have decided to focus on growing Vancouver as their "centralized" west-coast-development location, rather than Seattle, primarily due to salaries. So I guess we'll have to see if that works out for them.
- ayuvar 10y ago
  For awhile Facebook was using their Vancouver office to 'park' foreign talent until they could secure H1Bs for them to go to the US offices, because it was much easier to get a work visa for that talent in Canada.
walrus01 10y ago
Vancouver: consistently ranked as one of the world's top ten most expensive cities, with salaries half of what you can make in Seattle. The Vancouver technology sector is also a joke compared to Seattle... To the extent that hootsuite is a 'big deal' there.
- sdm 10y ago
  Actually Vancouver is never ranked in the top ten most expensive cities in the world. This is a myth that gets put around Vancouver due to Demographia's horrible annual which gets broadcast everywhere and horribly misinterpreted. They only look at a handful of Anglosphere cities and only look at housing affordability. But housing affordability is meaningless for gauging how expensive a city is -- you don't have to buy a house, you can rent, etc. Also, they have a stated goal of encouraging lower density and promoting sprawl and have ties to the automotive industry. If you look at actual studies of the cost of living in cities around the world, like from Mercer or the Economist, Vancouver is closer to the upper middle in terms of cost of living.
  - walrus01 10y ago
    > you can rent Vancouver literally has a 0.5% rental vacancy rate right now. If you put up an ad on Craigslist for an apartment for rent it'll get 50 replies in two hours. People are getting into bidding wars on apartments.
    - sdm 10y ago
      Yes, it's an increasingly tight market right now -- I just moved at the start of August -- but rents are still reasonable here for a city of Vancouver's size and development. Though this may change if the market if the current tightness, which only started about 6 months ago, maintains for a few years. The point remains, if you rent in Vancouver the city doesn't rank very high on the most expensive cities in the world list.
      - derefr 10y ago
ced 10y ago
Does anyone know why the pay is so much lower? It seems lame to blame it on "culture" (if it's really true, that's a great arbitrage opportunity). Are there systemic country-wide forces that push down on the salaries?
ommunist 10y ago
Wait and see British coming to Canada. Brexit changed the odds.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  Especially since in Europe/UK, developer starting salaries are less than comparable salaries in US/Canada/Aus IMO. So they'd be happy with less to start off with, and chances of them moving to the US are smaller, because they can't get TN visas.
- millak 10y ago
  Actually planning that move myself. My Canadian wife and I had it planned before Brexit, but Brexit seems to have justified it! Threads like this are a little disconcerting however.
grownseed 10y ago
As others have said, the salaries aren't particularly enticing and this is being felt strongly in a place as expensive as Vancouver. Interestingly, I think this might drive a boost in immigration - the reason I can stay in Vancouver is by having my job here, or going through the immigration ordeal with another company. I don't think it's a particularly healthy situation whichever way you look at it.
nwmcsween 10y ago
The issue is the wages, in Vancouver where a house is easily in the many millions companies seem to think it's fine and dandy to pay 80k a year in the high range, ultra high range is 120k/y and get this - low level assembly and C programming generally pays less than ruby or js.
noarchy 10y ago
Getting by as a tech worker in Canada is possible. The way I made it work was to take remote roles. Don't live in the Vancouver or Toronto areas, if possible - that's just not going to work, given the out-of-control cost of living associated with both areas. There are still plenty of places one can live in Canada that are not saddled with such costs.
- jld89 10y ago
  Getting by shouldn't be the objective. We should be able to thrive in a well paid job in a place that we want and like (not like we are entitled or anything this applies to any job everywhere).
- derefr 10y ago
  What exactly is the benefit of living in Canada if you're outside of the cities, anyway? From what I can see (having lived in both urban and rural Canada, and the US) Canadian cities have a unique character, but rural Canada is pretty much the same as rural America. If you don't care about living "near" anything, why does it matter what country you're doing it in?
fatdog 10y ago
Companies in Canada don't pay as much because a) there is a talent pool who will take what they are offering, b) they don't make enough revenue from a given dev to justify high salaries, or c) their investors do not see the risk/reward payoff of investing in top tier devs. As for a), yes, Canada's multiculturalism attracts migrants, who in spite of their talent have a crappy negotiating position and are easily taken advantage of. Everyone has a story of the guy who barely speaks english but who can code getting worked like a dog for peanuts. for b) for software in Canada, you sell to the 5 banks or government. it's recurring license fees from stable customers but in a limited market. And c) there is no market for software in canada that would justify a billion dollar valuation. Those valuations were based on cornering a user base to use as a sales channel. Further Canada's de-facto official policy of currency debasement to keep industrial exports afloat means limited purchasing power for citizens, therefore anything that succeeds has to succeed somewhere else. It's a great place to outsource your dev shop, kind of like a more reliable India or Belarus, but as a market it's just not large enough for to reap the network effect / micro-margin/infinite scale benefits of software solutions.

79 points by yannickt 10y ago

I listened to the podcast yesterday and while the premise is correct, the episode is actually lousy at explaining any of it, discussing anything that happened at the meetings with "leaders", and ultimately had the wrong people discussing the topic. This ended sounding like a platform for Dan Debow to talk about whatever agenda he wanted with little REAL pushback from the host. The only reassuring thing about this podcast was the brief mention that Ted Livingston (of Kik) was at those talks with so-called "leaders of Canada". I mean, do we really expect the likes of Galen Weston, Magna International, and the like to really talk about innovation or tech? Other than Kik, which of those companies would any person on HN really be interested in working at?

dmix 10y ago
This is sadly how policy decisions get made in government. The smart people building stuff are usually busy building stuff and are turned off of events with titles like "leaders of Canada". At the same time, a lot of the successful Canadian founders, who would have time for this, found success via acquisition by US companies and aren't around to attend. I'm curious if there are articles about Canada hemorrhaging math/finance talent to New York? Or is this just something we perpetually complain about in tech as if talent/industry centralization wasn't a phenomenon in almost every big new market in history. All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. That's how we can tell if their good or not, usually. And nothings wrong with that. No one complained when Drake signed to a US label when his new career took off...
- hinkley 10y ago
  Maybe it's just a continuation of the fine tradition in software management to blame everybody but yourself for the company's problems.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  The USA has many natural advantages against Canada when it comes to 'exceptionalism' - mostly scale and clusters. It's almost impossible to do anything A++ in Canada because it gets sucked into the US. So Canada is a great place for the 99%, but for anything that's exceptional, it's the US. The way market economies work 'exceptional' companies suck up most of the profits and surpluses ... So it's a perennial problem for the talented. But again, for most people, Canada is a better place if you can hack the weather.
- indlebe 10y ago
  >All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. Not the Tragically Hip. But they always seemed happy with that.
  - Naga 10y ago
    You know, I think it's a myth that they aren't popular there. They're no Rolling Stones, but they still fill concert halls and festivals! But they never sold their souls to the States and they seem very proud of it.

iamshs 10y ago

When I was searching for jobs, could not just believe the startup offers. $35K - $45K in Vancouver. I would have felt like a slave working for that kind of money in Vancouver. Albertan co-op guy would easily earn double that. I have not researched other nuances of this situation, but it put me off that scene entirely. Unfortunately, great white north will keep bleeding talent.

jschrf 10y ago
What kind of role were you seeking? Even without context, those numbers immediately jump out as "....what?"
- iamshs 10y ago
  They were all coding/programming roles. I am not from comp sci, was fresh out of uni and only had limited programming experience. I asked the recruiters why are they extending me the offers at all then?
  - sdm 10y ago
    Okay, then that's not as surprising. If you have a comp sci or engineering background it would be different. Breaking into the industry is hard without the correct education background. Until you have experience companies will lowball you to compensate for the risk involved in hiring you. This is the same pretty much anywhere.
    - iamshs 10y ago
      I have engineering background, just not comp sci one. In the end, I made six figures and some hefty bonuses right out of school. Don't offer me the job, but don't try to lowball me.
  - hluska 10y ago
    They likely knew they would have to train you in multiple areas, but liked your hustle and made an offer based on the cost of training you. At least, that's what I'd do - if you have limited experience, I'd need to teach you how to write code, how to work with code reviews, versioning control, etc, etc.

Danieru 10y ago

If you want canadian talent you can get it, but you cannot pretend you deserve it. You must work for it.That means identifying talent in university before the Microsoft or Google recruiters get ahold of their resume. It means finding developers before the skill is obvious for the big corps. Then you treat them well and have them start their career before graduation. During my university the local division of Coverity did a good job of this. They sponsored the programming club events. They sent real engineers to every career fair. They gave internships to 2 years. They kept on skilled programmers throughout the year. One guy I knew got married and bought a house while working part time there even before graduation. I would say that company grabbed the majority of the high-performing nice-to-work-with students from my year. The only ones they did not get was me (video game programming japan), and my friend (C++ standard library programming at google). Or you could whine about why you deserve to get Canada's best at insulting wages. Maybe that will work.

SuperPaintMan 10y ago
>Or you could whine about why you deserve to get Canada's best at insulting wages. Maybe that will work. Had a opportunity with a Ontario based startup, their starting package was 40k and they wanted me to relocate. When pushing for a better salary, I was told this was the best they could offer. Fucking insulting wage for a backend developer (Go/Appengine)
- flamedoge 10y ago
  Again and again, why don't Canadian companies understand that CS graduate can easily earn 100k in the states and can actually afford a house? How can they offer what they offer and stay competitive?
  - yazaddaruvala 10y ago
    I grew up in Vancouver, went to high-school there, whet to UBC there. My family is in Vancouver. The majority of my friends are in Vancouver. I own real-estate in Vancouver. I eventually want to move back to Vancouver. I can safely say I love Vancouver. However, I currently live in Seattle. Why? The money! As frustrating as it is to admit, and as uninteresting as it is, the simple answer is usually the most appropriate: Canadian companies like their tier-2 low wage talent (and some tier-1 low wage talent - who prefer Canada). Its good enough for their usecases, and it gets the job done. Meanwhile, they like to complain that they can't hire tier-1 low wage talent. That is the only answer I can come up with!

deleted 10y ago

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theGimp 10y ago

Any Canadian developer will tell you the problem is the abysmal pay that Canadian companies offer. I love my country and would love nothing more than to stay here, but when moving south of the border means a 50% bump, it's hard to stay in Canada. It doesn't help that most Canadian CEOs talk about the issue as if they're entitled to Canadian graduates working for them without making any attempt at matching US pay packages.

bobdole1234 10y ago
50%? I'm just shy of 4x.
- theGimp 10y ago
  Maybe I'll get there someday :-) I should have mentioned I'm still a student. I'm sure that for a senior developer, the difference is significantly larger.
  - keithwhor 10y ago
    You will. If you're at UW and/or have a competitive portfolio you can expect entry-level US (read: Bay Area) offers to be about 2x Canadian ones in terms total comp if you ignore exchange rate (more if you include it). If you're good, that's going to scale to about 3-5x what you get in Canada after a few years. And don't let anybody get on you about the cost of living. You can live pretty inexpensively in San Francisco, as you can in any city, if you're willing to make some sacrifices (roommates, transit).
- pyre 10y ago
  ... with people talking about offers for mid-level developers in Toronto / Vancouver being in the $70k - $110k range, are you claiming that you can pull in $280k - $440k for a software development position? If not, then I would think that this pay difference converges the more experience you have, no?
  - acchow 10y ago

ahmeni 10y ago

I grew up in Vancouver and miss it daily but none of the salaries would allow me to purchase a house anywhere closer than New Westminster. Instead now I live in Sydney, Aus and have the same cost of living but a salary that's scaled appropriately.

iamshs 10y ago
Hell man, I even miss Edmonton. Haha. I also moved to Australia.

robertelder 10y ago

A huge factor that I don't see any comments about yet, is the exchange rate. Look at this chart of the USD/CAD in the past 3 years: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=10Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=10Y A 35-40% swing in the purchasing power of the currency is a pretty big deal.

ahmeni 10y ago
This was still an issue when the currencies were closer to parity but the swing only makes things worse.
- cylinder 10y ago
  It'll never stop being an issue. You're in tech you go to SV, you're in entertainment you go to LA, you're in international criminal law you go to The Hague, you're in particle smashing you go to Europe, you're into iron ore mining you go to Perth, etc. Countries will just blow tax money trying to change things. Focus on your core competencies.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    What are Canada's core competencies? Where does it have a comparative advantage?
    - aianus 10y ago
      Potash, diamonds, gold, seal fur, oil sands. We basically dig things out of the ground and sell them to the US, it's really lame :(
      - wstrange 10y ago
        You forgot maple syrup. We have even have a strategic supply of the stuff
    - Tyr42 10y ago

bishnu 10y ago

When I was searching for entry level SWE jobs in Canada in 2011 after abruptly dropping out of grad school, I applied to ~50 positions and interviewed at around a dozen (public+private sector) in Vancouver + Alberta, all paying $50K-$60K. A year later, Google swooped in with an offer that quintupled my compensation. The thing that struck me about it most was the supposedly-intense Google programmer interviews were actually far less difficult than most of the all-day interviews I did for Canadian institutions. I was a bit outraged that these interviews could be so tough for such meager compensation, especially given the cost of living in Vancouver. I was surprised they were able to get away with it, and it looks like it's starting to bite them in the ass, for which I am glad. Edit: The specific places I would name, if anyone's curious, are Zymeworks and SAP in Vancouver, as well as staff research positions at UBC, University of Calgary, and the BC Cancer Agency.

iamshs 10y ago
I am a UofA graduate. Back when oilpatch was throwing big money at companies, me and my manager identified a solid start-up opportunity. I contacted two UofA comp sci guys, and they were not willing to come onboard because they were going to US. Right out of the gate, we could afford five six figure salaries, but we had to abide by some restrictions. I tried a lot to build that startup, but we just could not. As the comment above mentioned, get to them before Google, MS or Intel does; and cultivate a relationship.
im_down_w_otp 10y ago
You make $250k-$300k/yr for an entry-level software engineering job?
- acchow 10y ago
  He did say it was a Google offer, and definitely includes RSUs.
- beachstartup 10y ago
  yeah, sure. for google/apple/facebook/etc. 150k cash + 100k+ equity and bonus compensation sounds about right. on a good year, add another 100k. on a really good year, add another 250k. on a really really good year, add a couple million. who do you think is buying all these houses? the first step to making this kind of money is not settling for anything less, because opportunity is the biggest cost. when was the last time you turned down 150k to wait for a better offer?

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

Grew up there, went to Queen's, but after one crappy job in Ottawa in 1995, I left for the Bay Area for good. Now when I go back I'm struck by the high prices, high taxes, and a general (and sadly very Canadian) aversion to risk. I used to brag about Canada and honestly felt it was a better place to live...I don't think that any more.

jomamaxx 10y ago
Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US. It's not a good place for talent.
- rublev 10y ago
  >Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US. No it's not. Most youth have zero dreams related to property ownership, as everything near the core and cities that are near the core are prohibitively expensive. There is a general apathy and malaise here. "Just move outside of the city" they say, to suburbs that are also priced 500k+, and just far enough to only have to spend an hour and a half commuting to your city job.
  - branchless 10y ago
    That is a boomer problem. I'm afraid they have no desire in the main to comprehend the difficulties the young face.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    Having lived all over the world, all over Canada, and in Texas and Cali for many years, I can assure you that Canada is pretty good. You have clearly never lived in the Silicon Valley if you're talking about housing. Housing in the Valley is beyond unaffordable. A choice job at Google and you still won't be buying a home. You're probably young, and single. Your class has always struggled with home ownership. Most couples can afford to get in on the housing ladder by buying and apartment, and in some year, buy a home. That said - Toronto and Vancouver are distorted markets right now. Everywhere else in Canada is pretty normal and home ownership is similar to most places in the US that are not NYC/SF.

Terr_ 10y ago

Amusingly, I've been informed that my company's corporate overlords have decided to focus on growing Vancouver as their "centralized" west-coast-development location, rather than Seattle, primarily due to salaries. So I guess we'll have to see if that works out for them.

ayuvar 10y ago
For awhile Facebook was using their Vancouver office to 'park' foreign talent until they could secure H1Bs for them to go to the US offices, because it was much easier to get a work visa for that talent in Canada.

walrus01 10y ago

Vancouver: consistently ranked as one of the world's top ten most expensive cities, with salaries half of what you can make in Seattle. The Vancouver technology sector is also a joke compared to Seattle... To the extent that hootsuite is a 'big deal' there.

sdm 10y ago
Actually Vancouver is never ranked in the top ten most expensive cities in the world. This is a myth that gets put around Vancouver due to Demographia's horrible annual which gets broadcast everywhere and horribly misinterpreted. They only look at a handful of Anglosphere cities and only look at housing affordability. But housing affordability is meaningless for gauging how expensive a city is -- you don't have to buy a house, you can rent, etc. Also, they have a stated goal of encouraging lower density and promoting sprawl and have ties to the automotive industry. If you look at actual studies of the cost of living in cities around the world, like from Mercer or the Economist, Vancouver is closer to the upper middle in terms of cost of living.
- walrus01 10y ago
  > you can rent Vancouver literally has a 0.5% rental vacancy rate right now. If you put up an ad on Craigslist for an apartment for rent it'll get 50 replies in two hours. People are getting into bidding wars on apartments.
  - sdm 10y ago
    Yes, it's an increasingly tight market right now -- I just moved at the start of August -- but rents are still reasonable here for a city of Vancouver's size and development. Though this may change if the market if the current tightness, which only started about 6 months ago, maintains for a few years. The point remains, if you rent in Vancouver the city doesn't rank very high on the most expensive cities in the world list.
    - derefr 10y ago

ced 10y ago

Does anyone know why the pay is so much lower? It seems lame to blame it on "culture" (if it's really true, that's a great arbitrage opportunity). Are there systemic country-wide forces that push down on the salaries?

ommunist 10y ago

Wait and see British coming to Canada. Brexit changed the odds.

guitarbill 10y ago
Especially since in Europe/UK, developer starting salaries are less than comparable salaries in US/Canada/Aus IMO. So they'd be happy with less to start off with, and chances of them moving to the US are smaller, because they can't get TN visas.
millak 10y ago
Actually planning that move myself. My Canadian wife and I had it planned before Brexit, but Brexit seems to have justified it! Threads like this are a little disconcerting however.

grownseed 10y ago

As others have said, the salaries aren't particularly enticing and this is being felt strongly in a place as expensive as Vancouver. Interestingly, I think this might drive a boost in immigration - the reason I can stay in Vancouver is by having my job here, or going through the immigration ordeal with another company. I don't think it's a particularly healthy situation whichever way you look at it.

nwmcsween 10y ago

The issue is the wages, in Vancouver where a house is easily in the many millions companies seem to think it's fine and dandy to pay 80k a year in the high range, ultra high range is 120k/y and get this - low level assembly and C programming generally pays less than ruby or js.

noarchy 10y ago

Getting by as a tech worker in Canada is possible. The way I made it work was to take remote roles. Don't live in the Vancouver or Toronto areas, if possible - that's just not going to work, given the out-of-control cost of living associated with both areas. There are still plenty of places one can live in Canada that are not saddled with such costs.

jld89 10y ago
Getting by shouldn't be the objective. We should be able to thrive in a well paid job in a place that we want and like (not like we are entitled or anything this applies to any job everywhere).
derefr 10y ago
What exactly is the benefit of living in Canada if you're outside of the cities, anyway? From what I can see (having lived in both urban and rural Canada, and the US) Canadian cities have a unique character, but rural Canada is pretty much the same as rural America. If you don't care about living "near" anything, why does it matter what country you're doing it in?

fatdog 10y ago

Companies in Canada don't pay as much because a) there is a talent pool who will take what they are offering, b) they don't make enough revenue from a given dev to justify high salaries, or c) their investors do not see the risk/reward payoff of investing in top tier devs. As for a), yes, Canada's multiculturalism attracts migrants, who in spite of their talent have a crappy negotiating position and are easily taken advantage of. Everyone has a story of the guy who barely speaks english but who can code getting worked like a dog for peanuts. for b) for software in Canada, you sell to the 5 banks or government. it's recurring license fees from stable customers but in a limited market. And c) there is no market for software in canada that would justify a billion dollar valuation. Those valuations were based on cornering a user base to use as a sales channel. Further Canada's de-facto official policy of currency debasement to keep industrial exports afloat means limited purchasing power for citizens, therefore anything that succeeds has to succeed somewhere else. It's a great place to outsource your dev shop, kind of like a more reliable India or Belarus, but as a market it's just not large enough for to reap the network effect / micro-margin/infinite scale benefits of software solutions.