9 ms·

Canadian software engineers paid peanuts

26 points by johan_larson 9y ago

So, I’ve been looking at the differentials in pay for software engineers in the US and Canada. And I gotta tell you, it’s just sad. Here are some figures from Vancouver’s pitch[1] to Amazon for HQ2. Toronto pay is half of Seattle pay. No wonder half of each class from Waterloo heads south. Market Average Annual Tech Wage Software Engineer (USD) Vancouver, BC — $60,107 Toronto, ON — $62,365 Atlanta, GA — $92,380 Boston, MA — $103,979 Washington, DC — $108,330 New York, NY — $108,878 Seattle, WA — $113,906 The question is why the difference is so very broad. Off hand, I suspect the problem is demand. Seattle has two large top-tier tech companies based locally. Toronto has nothing of the sort. There are smaller tech companies, of course, and banks and one outpost of one of the majors. But the deep need to fight for talent just isn't there. [1] http://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Vancouver-Amazon-HQ2-Proposal-Feb-2018.pdf

techjuice 9y ago
It's all about supply and demand. The big tech companies want the best engineers in the world and they are willing to pay for them as their value and return on investment is what makes them the top revenue companies in the world. If the companies in Vancouver wanted top talent they would need to increase compensation in terms of salary, bonuses, stock options, etc. and insure the community around the business is modern and high tech. As a top engineer you have the choice to go where ever the best challenges and compensation are. If you have over 10 years experience in a field and very good at what you do you should be paid exceptional well for it. As the value you bring to the company you work for makes the bottom line meter move upwards and you bring innovation and help move the company forward. Mix a couple of teams of top quality and value engineers and you get products and services that the entire world wants to use. Talent also attracts talent, so if your company has very well known engineers working there that are very well known and respected in their fields other engineers will follow.
Davidbrcz 9y ago
Raw figures are worthless without taking into account cost of living, taxes and public services (social security, retirement plan).
- johan_larson 9y ago
  If you have more accurate figures, by all means post them. But it's going to take a lot to span a gap this broad. For what it's worth, both Vancouver and Toronto were rated as "severely unaffordable" in the 14th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2018. https://fcpp.org/wp-content/uploads/dhi2018-fcpp.pdf https://fcpp.org/wp-content/uploads/dhi2018-fcpp.pdf
  - spoonie 9y ago
    You can consider things like the cost of health care (usually moot as big companies in the US will pay for all of your insurance costs), and education for your kids. What’s the tuition difference between top tier schools in the US and Canada? What about primary school? I hear many people in the US pay to send their kids to private primary and secondary schools. If you are raising a family in the US those are lots of extra ancillary costs that are higher than in Canada.
    - adventured 9y ago
      There are no top tier schools in Canada. That's one of the problems. There's no Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Brown, Duke, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, CIT, Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, et al. Canada's few top tier schools, are second tier schools in the US, barely. Canada has only a few schools that compare to the University of Virginia, UNC or Michigan. The US has dozens of schools like that, eg: USC, UCLA, Florida, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Tulane, Pepperdine, Northeastern, Georgia, Boston, GIT, BC, NYU, Tufts, Wake Forest, Wisconsin Madison, Texas, Villanova, Penn State, Ohio State etc. A bunch of those second tier schools cost $9k to $12k per year in-state tuition + fees. UNC is $9k, Florida is $6k. A four year degree will get you a $85k to $100k per year career as an engineer. You can pay for half of your tuition cost before you graduate with part-time work. You can go to Berkely for $14k in-state. A degree from there in something of value in engineering, and you can write your ticket. You can easily pay off your education in a few years, and have an elite career that pays a top 3% income.
      - 9y ago
lucozade 9y ago
I just took a quick look at average salaries and cost of living (specifically rent) [0]. WRT average salaries, none of these seem particularly out of kilter i.e. the ratios of the salaries you quote to the average salary of the respective areas are fairly consistent. What's interesting is cost of living. Surprisingly (to me) Vancouver and Toronto have salary to rent ratios similar to New York. Boston and Washington are better i.e. higher ratios. Seattle and especially Atlanta are much better. Not sure what to conclude from this but it's quite interesting, at least to me. [0] https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living I have absolutely no idea how good this data is.
xstartup 9y ago
The job is just not same. In the big company where my bro worked had its best employees sent to HQ so that they could pay them more. The guys who got employed at satellite offices could never directly get employed at the HQ. Rest of the small companies have no choice but to pay more to get any talent. I think big companies have their HQ in those expensive areas because their top guys prefer that for networking purpose. Most of the time a city is established as a hub for X and it's difficult to change that.
mchannon 9y ago
Part of this difference is also the fluctuation in exchange rates. Around 2014, 1 CAD was worth about 1 USD, but since then, the loonie has plummeted in value relative to the greenback. That doesn't account for the entire difference, but it does account for some of it.
parliament32 9y ago
Seems to be a combination of cost-of-living and demand. Consider the following cost-of-living comparison between Vancouver and Seattle: Consumer Prices in Seattle, WA are 20.02% higher than in Vancouver Consumer Prices Including Rent in Seattle, WA are 22.54% higher than in Vancouver Rent Prices in Seattle, WA are 26.38% higher than in Vancouver Restaurant Prices in Seattle, WA are 19.51% higher than in Vancouver Groceries Prices in Seattle, WA are 21.84% higher than in Vancouver (https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
gesman 9y ago
It's not unheard of for Senior Canadian Software engineer to get paid about 2x-4x times more in CA[lifornia]. Miserable salary? Miserably long depressing winters? Thanks, but no thanks.
danieltillett 9y ago
Like everything it is a factor of supply and demand. On the demand side there is not as great a demand from employers for software engineers in Canada, on the supply side immigration is considerably easier into Canada for software engineers. Less demand and greater supply = lower wages. We have the same issue here in Australia.
- alexdrans 9y ago
  Same in the UK but more severe.
- hemantv 9y ago
  Not to refute you completely. Maybe it because there are not many companies that can be created with small populations as Canada and Australia? Which results in less companies. US benefit far more from big large single market with high purchasing power than anything else. IMHO. Let me know if I am missing something here.
oblib 9y ago
The measurement that really needs to be considered is "quality of life" and that is easy to overlook. I wouldn't live in DC or New York for those wages but Vancouver might not be too bad for the pay there and I know of places where you could get by on less than 60k and live quite a bit better than any of those for the wages listed. I live in one.
- O_H_E 9y ago
  Interesting POV
cmorgan8506 9y ago
I'm Canadian and have definitely noticed a big difference. Though there also seems to be a strong demand for programmers, so I'm not sure why the wage isn't pushing further. I'm remote. so I've found contracting to American companies to be best case scenario. Particularly when the our dollar is lower.
nakedgrape 9y ago
Hmm. I've seen these charts often but I have to say I've never met anyone get paid less than eighty. Myself and most of my peers at UBC start at about 90-110k for Google, Fb, Amazon and whatnot (only speaking for Vancouver). My dad also worked in software back in the day in Toronto and he was also rarely less than 100k.
- johan_larson 9y ago
  Keep in mind that these figures are in American dollars. Also, the companies you mention are the elite of this industry, and pay accordingly. Other places pay less.

26 points by johan_larson 9y ago

techjuice 9y ago

It's all about supply and demand. The big tech companies want the best engineers in the world and they are willing to pay for them as their value and return on investment is what makes them the top revenue companies in the world. If the companies in Vancouver wanted top talent they would need to increase compensation in terms of salary, bonuses, stock options, etc. and insure the community around the business is modern and high tech. As a top engineer you have the choice to go where ever the best challenges and compensation are. If you have over 10 years experience in a field and very good at what you do you should be paid exceptional well for it. As the value you bring to the company you work for makes the bottom line meter move upwards and you bring innovation and help move the company forward. Mix a couple of teams of top quality and value engineers and you get products and services that the entire world wants to use. Talent also attracts talent, so if your company has very well known engineers working there that are very well known and respected in their fields other engineers will follow.

Davidbrcz 9y ago

Raw figures are worthless without taking into account cost of living, taxes and public services (social security, retirement plan).

johan_larson 9y ago
If you have more accurate figures, by all means post them. But it's going to take a lot to span a gap this broad. For what it's worth, both Vancouver and Toronto were rated as "severely unaffordable" in the 14th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2018. https://fcpp.org/wp-content/uploads/dhi2018-fcpp.pdf https://fcpp.org/wp-content/uploads/dhi2018-fcpp.pdf
- spoonie 9y ago
  You can consider things like the cost of health care (usually moot as big companies in the US will pay for all of your insurance costs), and education for your kids. What’s the tuition difference between top tier schools in the US and Canada? What about primary school? I hear many people in the US pay to send their kids to private primary and secondary schools. If you are raising a family in the US those are lots of extra ancillary costs that are higher than in Canada.
  - adventured 9y ago
    There are no top tier schools in Canada. That's one of the problems. There's no Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Brown, Duke, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, CIT, Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, et al. Canada's few top tier schools, are second tier schools in the US, barely. Canada has only a few schools that compare to the University of Virginia, UNC or Michigan. The US has dozens of schools like that, eg: USC, UCLA, Florida, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Tulane, Pepperdine, Northeastern, Georgia, Boston, GIT, BC, NYU, Tufts, Wake Forest, Wisconsin Madison, Texas, Villanova, Penn State, Ohio State etc. A bunch of those second tier schools cost $9k to $12k per year in-state tuition + fees. UNC is $9k, Florida is $6k. A four year degree will get you a $85k to $100k per year career as an engineer. You can pay for half of your tuition cost before you graduate with part-time work. You can go to Berkely for $14k in-state. A degree from there in something of value in engineering, and you can write your ticket. You can easily pay off your education in a few years, and have an elite career that pays a top 3% income.
    - 9y ago

lucozade 9y ago

I just took a quick look at average salaries and cost of living (specifically rent) [0]. WRT average salaries, none of these seem particularly out of kilter i.e. the ratios of the salaries you quote to the average salary of the respective areas are fairly consistent. What's interesting is cost of living. Surprisingly (to me) Vancouver and Toronto have salary to rent ratios similar to New York. Boston and Washington are better i.e. higher ratios. Seattle and especially Atlanta are much better. Not sure what to conclude from this but it's quite interesting, at least to me. [0] https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living I have absolutely no idea how good this data is.

xstartup 9y ago

The job is just not same. In the big company where my bro worked had its best employees sent to HQ so that they could pay them more. The guys who got employed at satellite offices could never directly get employed at the HQ. Rest of the small companies have no choice but to pay more to get any talent. I think big companies have their HQ in those expensive areas because their top guys prefer that for networking purpose. Most of the time a city is established as a hub for X and it's difficult to change that.

mchannon 9y ago

Part of this difference is also the fluctuation in exchange rates. Around 2014, 1 CAD was worth about 1 USD, but since then, the loonie has plummeted in value relative to the greenback. That doesn't account for the entire difference, but it does account for some of it.

parliament32 9y ago

Seems to be a combination of cost-of-living and demand. Consider the following cost-of-living comparison between Vancouver and Seattle: Consumer Prices in Seattle, WA are 20.02% higher than in Vancouver Consumer Prices Including Rent in Seattle, WA are 22.54% higher than in Vancouver Rent Prices in Seattle, WA are 26.38% higher than in Vancouver Restaurant Prices in Seattle, WA are 19.51% higher than in Vancouver Groceries Prices in Seattle, WA are 21.84% higher than in Vancouver (https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

gesman 9y ago

It's not unheard of for Senior Canadian Software engineer to get paid about 2x-4x times more in CA[lifornia]. Miserable salary? Miserably long depressing winters? Thanks, but no thanks.

danieltillett 9y ago

Like everything it is a factor of supply and demand. On the demand side there is not as great a demand from employers for software engineers in Canada, on the supply side immigration is considerably easier into Canada for software engineers. Less demand and greater supply = lower wages. We have the same issue here in Australia.

alexdrans 9y ago
Same in the UK but more severe.
hemantv 9y ago
Not to refute you completely. Maybe it because there are not many companies that can be created with small populations as Canada and Australia? Which results in less companies. US benefit far more from big large single market with high purchasing power than anything else. IMHO. Let me know if I am missing something here.

oblib 9y ago

The measurement that really needs to be considered is "quality of life" and that is easy to overlook. I wouldn't live in DC or New York for those wages but Vancouver might not be too bad for the pay there and I know of places where you could get by on less than 60k and live quite a bit better than any of those for the wages listed. I live in one.

O_H_E 9y ago
Interesting POV

cmorgan8506 9y ago

I'm Canadian and have definitely noticed a big difference. Though there also seems to be a strong demand for programmers, so I'm not sure why the wage isn't pushing further. I'm remote. so I've found contracting to American companies to be best case scenario. Particularly when the our dollar is lower.

nakedgrape 9y ago

Hmm. I've seen these charts often but I have to say I've never met anyone get paid less than eighty. Myself and most of my peers at UBC start at about 90-110k for Google, Fb, Amazon and whatnot (only speaking for Vancouver). My dad also worked in software back in the day in Toronto and he was also rarely less than 100k.

johan_larson 9y ago
Keep in mind that these figures are in American dollars. Also, the companies you mention are the elite of this industry, and pay accordingly. Other places pay less.