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Exactly. Soti is paying on average $80k/year for their non-senior devs (source:glassdoor). That's $20k/year less than the median starting salary of graduates fr

Exactly. Soti is paying on average $80k/year for their non-senior devs (source:glassdoor). That's $20k/year less than the median starting salary of graduates from my undergrad. Of course, they are in Canada, but still, it's no wonder they're having trouble hiring people. Just pay more for less positions...

kspaans 9y ago
Yes they are in Canada where they don't need their employers-sponsored health insurance, get more vacation time, don't have huge student debt, and can't get laid off with no severance and no notice.
- opportune 9y ago
  Just as a rebuttal, I don't have student debt and get plenty of vacation time, and my employer has pretty amazing health insurance. Not everyone is lucky this way but I personally would never move to Canada for a tech job and don't know anybody who has done so, while I have definitely met many Canadians who have moved here. The Canadian and US labor markets are pretty interconnected so in my opinion these companies are going to have to start raising salaries if they really want to get talent. I feel like I read something on HN every week bemoaning the Canadian tech industry, when most of the problems have a pretty simple solution: pay more. Of course, that's easy to say but not necessarily easy to do financially.
  - kspaans 9y ago
    No argument here that the jobs are more lucrative, on paper, South of the border. Just trying to point out that there are lots of aspects to consider when you're looking at compensation. Being young, healthy, and single in the US can net you a lot, but I suspect that other bills would quickly eat up the difference if you aren't all 3 of those things.
    - Afton 9y ago
      As a Canadian who moved south for work and is rapidly approaching or in middle age, this is my position on the healthcare here: If you have good insurance, it is AMAZING! I understand that others have it worse, but all major software dev employers that I've looked at had really really great HI. In Canada OTOH, the service is much worse for non-emergency things, but everyone gets to have it. From an ethical standpoint, of course I support some kind of 'everyone gets sensible healthcare'. But I pay less out of pocket here than I would in Canada for my family of 5. Financially, moving back to Canada would be a disaster.
- briandear 9y ago
  If the employer doesn’t pay health, then salaries should be much higher than the US. Salaries in the US are exclusives of health benefits. So an SV company paying $140k is paying that in addition to health benefits. A Canadian company is paying $60k AND they don’t have the additional expensive of health. Then on top of that low salary, the employee has to pay taxes which obstensiby funds their health care. Perhaps it’s worker protection that makes salaries lower in Canada? If it’s harder to fire people, that cost gets spread across all salaries to reflect the risk of having an employee you can’t easily fire. Canadaians make far less than Americans even after accounting for the “benefits.” I once saw a company looking to hire a senior rails developer at $25 CAD per hour. Insanity. I think it was even for a Vancouver company.
aswanson 9y ago
What are Canadian business tax rates vs US rates?
- jellicle 9y ago
  0% for both, for any money spent on salaries.
  - thephyber 9y ago
    This is potentially misleading. The US has a "payroll tax", which is paid by companies and is usually a percentage of the salary paid to the employee. You may not consider it a "business tax", but others might. Also, some cities have business taxes on a per-employee basis. Additionally, there is potentially a lot of variance in business taxes between one state/province/municipality and another.
tensor 9y ago
I don't believe for a second that the average amount a CS undergrad from any Canadian school is getting is 100k. The top students sure, they will get offers from big places in California for 90k USD but the top students are far from "average." Even in the US when you consider the whole instead of just Silicon Valley that is not a reasonable number to expect.
- samclearman 9y ago
  Top students getting offers in California are getting 150k USD minimum (including equity and bonus).
  - tensor 9y ago
    Maybe if you have a PhD, but not from undergrad. If you have any sort of data to back this up please present it, because public statistics don't reflect this, and logic doesn't support paying an undergrad anything close to that.
- opportune 9y ago
  You're right, I don't go to a school in Canada. But 90k USD is actually very low these days for places like Google/Facebook/MS so your comment is still not quite so up-to-date. 100k really is the median starting salary of graduating undergrads (at my undergrad, at least). If Canada doesn't want all their CS graduates chasing the huge amounts of money they can make in the US, they need to raise their salaries. Otherwise they won't only face a tech-worker shortage, they'll have to deal with a full-on brain drain, which is even worse (of course, Google is expanding in Canada so hopefully this won't happen).

kspaans 9y ago

Yes they are in Canada where they don't need their employers-sponsored health insurance, get more vacation time, don't have huge student debt, and can't get laid off with no severance and no notice.

opportune 9y ago
Just as a rebuttal, I don't have student debt and get plenty of vacation time, and my employer has pretty amazing health insurance. Not everyone is lucky this way but I personally would never move to Canada for a tech job and don't know anybody who has done so, while I have definitely met many Canadians who have moved here. The Canadian and US labor markets are pretty interconnected so in my opinion these companies are going to have to start raising salaries if they really want to get talent. I feel like I read something on HN every week bemoaning the Canadian tech industry, when most of the problems have a pretty simple solution: pay more. Of course, that's easy to say but not necessarily easy to do financially.
- kspaans 9y ago
  No argument here that the jobs are more lucrative, on paper, South of the border. Just trying to point out that there are lots of aspects to consider when you're looking at compensation. Being young, healthy, and single in the US can net you a lot, but I suspect that other bills would quickly eat up the difference if you aren't all 3 of those things.
  - Afton 9y ago
    As a Canadian who moved south for work and is rapidly approaching or in middle age, this is my position on the healthcare here: If you have good insurance, it is AMAZING! I understand that others have it worse, but all major software dev employers that I've looked at had really really great HI. In Canada OTOH, the service is much worse for non-emergency things, but everyone gets to have it. From an ethical standpoint, of course I support some kind of 'everyone gets sensible healthcare'. But I pay less out of pocket here than I would in Canada for my family of 5. Financially, moving back to Canada would be a disaster.
briandear 9y ago
If the employer doesn’t pay health, then salaries should be much higher than the US. Salaries in the US are exclusives of health benefits. So an SV company paying $140k is paying that in addition to health benefits. A Canadian company is paying $60k AND they don’t have the additional expensive of health. Then on top of that low salary, the employee has to pay taxes which obstensiby funds their health care. Perhaps it’s worker protection that makes salaries lower in Canada? If it’s harder to fire people, that cost gets spread across all salaries to reflect the risk of having an employee you can’t easily fire. Canadaians make far less than Americans even after accounting for the “benefits.” I once saw a company looking to hire a senior rails developer at $25 CAD per hour. Insanity. I think it was even for a Vancouver company.

aswanson 9y ago

What are Canadian business tax rates vs US rates?

jellicle 9y ago
0% for both, for any money spent on salaries.
- thephyber 9y ago
  This is potentially misleading. The US has a "payroll tax", which is paid by companies and is usually a percentage of the salary paid to the employee. You may not consider it a "business tax", but others might. Also, some cities have business taxes on a per-employee basis. Additionally, there is potentially a lot of variance in business taxes between one state/province/municipality and another.

tensor 9y ago

I don't believe for a second that the average amount a CS undergrad from any Canadian school is getting is 100k. The top students sure, they will get offers from big places in California for 90k USD but the top students are far from "average." Even in the US when you consider the whole instead of just Silicon Valley that is not a reasonable number to expect.

samclearman 9y ago
Top students getting offers in California are getting 150k USD minimum (including equity and bonus).
- tensor 9y ago
  Maybe if you have a PhD, but not from undergrad. If you have any sort of data to back this up please present it, because public statistics don't reflect this, and logic doesn't support paying an undergrad anything close to that.
opportune 9y ago
You're right, I don't go to a school in Canada. But 90k USD is actually very low these days for places like Google/Facebook/MS so your comment is still not quite so up-to-date. 100k really is the median starting salary of graduating undergrads (at my undergrad, at least). If Canada doesn't want all their CS graduates chasing the huge amounts of money they can make in the US, they need to raise their salaries. Otherwise they won't only face a tech-worker shortage, they'll have to deal with a full-on brain drain, which is even worse (of course, Google is expanding in Canada so hopefully this won't happen).