10 ms·

If Canadian companies were willing to offer a competitive salary, maybe Canadian grads would stay. It doesn't even have to be 1:1 with the US, even 75% would be

• berg01 8y ago
  Developers are undervalued quite a bit in most places outside SV. (And maybe overvalued a bit in SV.) I agree about your main point though. It's time to put up (salaries in this case) or shut up.
• m-p-3 8y ago
  I'm wondering how that salary difference really is when comparing the cost of living of many Canadian cities vs Silicon Valley, the taxation rate and the social services provided (universal healthcare, etc).
  • lainga 8y ago
    Coming from BC (west coast) I believe the taxation rate would work out about the same.
    • refurb 8y ago
      Income taxes BC <> CA are pretty similar, but other taxes aren't. Gas is the equivalent of $6/gal in Canada right now (due to taxes), sales tax is 12% and a lot of products (electronics, etc) are just generally more expensive in Canada.
      • ixacto 8y ago
        Seattle is trying hard to catch up. 10.1% sales tax + just under 50% liquor tax.
        • refurb 8y ago
          No state income tax though!
      • dagmx 8y ago
        This is something I've been comparing. I'd pay a little less in income tax in California actually for my brackets, but even though rents etc in SV are higher, I also would be paying less for gas, groceries and any entertainment and tech purchases. The savings look like they will add up over time.
  • bacongobbler 8y ago
    The cost of living in the major Canadian tech cities (Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa) is lower than Silicon Valley, sure, but Vancouver is still one of the most expensive cities to live in the world. The drop in salary is way too low when compared to the cost of living.
  • Eridrus 8y ago
    > the social services provided (universal healthcare, etc). I think the individual value of most social services is pretty low to people in this demographic (recent graduates taking software jobs in the US). Sure, universal healthcare is great, but US companies also provide health insurance.
    • estebank 8y ago
      That demographic you're referring to is no less likely to be involved in traffic accidents that can send you to the closest available hospital. In the US that means an ambulance bill and very likely a hospital bill that your insurance might not cover, and the high possibility of chronic pain that's not necessarily covered by your health insurance. And that's even before having to deal with lawyers in order to obtain compensation back from the driver's insurance company in order to repay the out of pocket expenses. (The system, at least in California is set up in such a way that the car insurance has to pay 3X the costs to divide in thirds for 1) your lawyer, 2) your insurance provider and 3) yourself.)
      • CydeWeys 8y ago
        Yes, but most companies in this space provide some sort of healthcare, which covers a lot of that, and accidents are a small percentage of total healthcare outlays anyway. Much more healthcare spending goes to older people, for a much broader array of more common conditions than "got into a bad car accident". Health insurance is much more expensive at 55 than at 25.
        • estebank 8y ago
          Younger people do have fewer needs to treat chronic illnesses. That doesn't mean that healthcare can never be a significant financial burden regardless. - I've met people that have had terminal cancer in their very early 30s (didn't leave a giant bill to their state as this happened in the UK) - I've had a friend that needed an ambulance for his pregnant wife from an airport (>10K USD in out of pocket expenses) - I've been stabbed in an attempted robbery (again, no expense as this was in Argentina) - Young people with chronic illnesses exist
  • ironrabbit 8y ago
    Born/raised in Toronto, been in SF for ~4 years. It's not even close. Yes, my rent in SF is high, but my total comp is six figures higher than what I could earn in Toronto. Wages are considerably higher, even when you factor in cost of living, services, and everything else.
  • mywittyname 8y ago
    The big tech hubs in CA (Toronto, Vancouver) are expensive and traffic is absolutely awful. A quick glance online shows average apartment prices are nearly $2000/mo. So it's almost like you're living in Seattle anyway. I don't think CA has many technical equivalents to Ohama or Columbus that combine high salaries from numerous F500 companies with Midwestern COL.
    • Thaxll 8y ago
      Isn't Montreal bigger than Vancouver? Also Montreal is cheap to live in.
      • monkeynotes 8y ago
        Quebec has some of the highest income taxes in Canada.
        • betaby 8y ago
          About the same as in California for salaries over 100K
      • t1o5 8y ago
        Other than Montreal's cheap cost of living and good public transportation, everything else is not so great. Talented engineers graduating from McGill and Concordia are leaving the province in droves because of Quebec's weird language laws [1], high taxes and obsolete immigration system. (Eg: KFC was renamed to PFK to comply with the language laws) MIDI, the immigration department of Quebec which has fully autonomy for selecting immigrants to Quebec fails to attract or retain the foreign talents. A highly skilled worker is not given any kind of priority in their immigration application. On the other hand, if you only have a school diploma, but can speak fluent French, you get the top priority in Quebec immigration. If you are highly skilled, but do not know a word of French, it will take a minimum of 4 years to immigrate to Quebec [2]. Montreal is just riding on their old inertia. There is a huge shortage of talent in Quebec. The policies of immigration dept. of Quebec and Quebec's language policies will drive Quebec down the drain. Some politicians have even announced that if they get elected, they will deport all the non French speaking immigrants out of Quebec. So any startups looking to start their business in Quebec, you have been warned. Montreal is a great tourist city, no contest. But not so great to live or work for tech. If you immigrate to Quebec, your kids should go to French school only.[4] [1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pastagate-reveals-the-hypocrisy-of-quebecs-french-hardliners/article9065481/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pastagate-reve... [2] http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/02/27/des-travailleurs-etrangers-qualifies-oublies-par-quebec http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/02/27/des-travailleurs... [3] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/caq-s-new-immigration-policy-learn-french-or-leave-1.2282545 https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/caq-s-new-immigration-policy-lea... [4] http://unbelavenir.gouv.qc.ca/en/whychoosequebec-foreducation.php http://unbelavenir.gouv.qc.ca/en/whychoosequebec-foreducatio...
  • privacypoller 8y ago
    The cost of living between Vancouver and Seattle is very comparable, especially when you account for your biggest input costs, housing, food & transportation. The Salaries most definitely are not. The biggies south of the border set the baseline salary for everyone; when they move north they match the existing, much lower rates. If I was a new-ish grad and wanted to stay in the PNW there's not a chance I'd pick Vancouver. Seattle has all the same electric cars, dog bakeries and yarn stores that you'll find in the lower mainland, and heading to Whistler for the weekend with more US greenbacks in your pocket would be a lot more fun...
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • hluska 8y ago
      I can't believe how much Vancouver has changed (as far as attractiveness for recent grads) over the last twenty years. When I turned 20 in 1997, Vancouver seemed like a personal version of heaven. Rents were more expensive than where I'm from, but that increase was easily offset by the ability to easily double my salary. Real estate was heavy, but not so heavy that it seemed unobtainable. Add in what I perceived to be real opportunity to work in an interesting field, a highly educated workforce and the natural beauty and I was completely sold. Today, even if I were twenty again, I can't think of a single legitimate reason why I would choose Vancouver over Seattle.
      • woolvalley 8y ago
        Having lived in both, the cities are pretty much identical in practice in your day to day life, not counting the costs and the income.
    • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Eating out is definitely better in Vancouver than Seattle, both in variety and price. However, that’s about it.
  • merinowool 8y ago
    Is Canadian healthcare any good? Where I live, you pay for this privilege quite a lot of tax at still you have to go privately, because the quality is just not worth your health. I really wish "universal healthcare" was scrapped, so I could afford better services privately.
    • graeme 8y ago
      Yup, Canadian healthcare is generally excellent. The main complaints thar hit the news are generally long wait times for elective surgeries like knee fixes. For anything other than that I've had effectively zero wait time and excellent care. There are even free health lines you can call for basic info.
    • wk_end 8y ago
      Canadian living in the US: in my experience Canadian health care is as good or better than in the US. Waiting times are probably somewhat longer for non-emergencies because of triaging, but (again, my experience, subjective, etc) I've often felt doctors are more interested in providing care and less interested in unnecessary upselling. I've only ever lived in the GTA, though. It's my understanding that in many places away from major cities there can be a shortage of doctors.
      • refurb 8y ago
        Canadian living in the US: in my experience Canadian health care is as good or better than in the US. Canadian living in US as well. The one thing I've noticed is the choice of healthcare in the US (for those with good insurance). Have cancer? Pick the best hospital you can find in the area. In Canada, you might live next to a world-class institute or it might just be a regular hospital. That's where you go. But yes, healthcare in Canada is very good. The other thing I would call out is that experimental/cutting edge technology is often available in the US before Canada.
    • __erik 8y ago
      Canadian services are typically good especially for urgent care things, I only have gone private on one occasion and that was for an MRI years ago when there were fewer of them available. I had a tear in my MCL and they wanted to see the degree (relatively low priority, it wasn't a full tear and I didnt need surgery). The wait for the MRI was ~6 weeks but so just paid out of pocket privately and had the results sent to my doctor. Took 2 days and he got what he needed.
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• RobertDeNiro 8y ago
  Lower salary could be acceptable if the cost of living was lower, unfortunately it's often the same as in the US. Vancouver might even be more expensive. Maybe if provincial/federal governments tackled that first more people would stay, as it would be a better environment to raise a family.
  • lhorie 8y ago
    > unfortunately it's often the same as in the US Definitely not my experience (Toronto -> SF). My rent for a 2-bed apartment in SF is twice as much as my mortgage for a 3-bed detached in Toronto (both with similar commute times) With that said, signing bonuses are definitely something that you don't ever get in Canada, raises and yearly bonuses are also categorically lower, and housing prices have been outpacing salary increases significantly. However, there are definitely very good reasons to be in Canada instead of the US/Bay area. Healthcare, for one thing, isn't an opaque insurance clusterfuck. It's also much safer (both macroscopically, in terms of things like shootings, and microscopically, in terms of side effects of widespread homelessness). Another thing to consider is that work visas are far easier to get in Canada, and the path to citizenship is also much less draconian.
• guiolo 8y ago
  > Canadian tech companies love to complain about lack of talent, but they're not willing to pay for it [...] They most likely to a large extent can't. It's just a different model both as comapnies and country. In general you can rarely win by being a lesser version of something else. Canada can, hopefully, do a lot of things the US can't. Those are the things it should do to attract people.
  • jorblumesea 8y ago
    Canada's main attraction is the social services and basicaly guaranteed citizenship. The US's main attraction is money and technical opportunities and also some vague promise of a green card.
    • woolvalley 8y ago
      If you were not born in China or India, then getting a green card isn't a vague promise. Go work at google, try to get an H1B or L1 ASAP and then get your green card in 1-2 years after that.
      • netheril96 8y ago
        Given that much more Chinese and Indians still prefer US to Canada, further and further elongating the lines for green card, it seems the Canadian advantage is not so enticing after all.
  • Kelbit 8y ago
    I think it's more a case of VCs not being calibrated to the real cost of doing business. Canada is a first world country with a GDP per capita not much less than the states. There is plenty of wealth available that could be invested in tech. It's just Bay Street generally doesn't want to, because they don't understand the tech business. Name one prominent Canadian VC firm - I can't think of any, and I'm Canadian. But ask me about US firms, and I can name firms like Sequioa, a16z, and BVP. We don't have that here.
    • 8y ago
• bambataa 8y ago
  How do the working hours / culture compare?
• otempomores 8y ago
  Same here in Germany. Talent usually goes to Switzerland or California. The problem is that management in these companies consider the defunct state of affairs normal. Usually they just consider software just as a external service sadly demanded by the customer.
• nvarsj 8y ago
  Big 5 new grad salary in the bay area (and Seattle for Amazon) is a microcosm. Those kinds of salaries aren't sustainable for most companies.
  • Kelbit 8y ago
    It was not the Bay Area, he was working in Seattle.
  • frakkingcylons 8y ago
    > You won't even get those salaries from the big 5 outside of the bay area. Flat out wrong. FAANG will absolutely give you similar salaries in metro areas like Seattle, NYC, Austin. Where are you getting your data?
    • nvarsj 8y ago
      I'm talking specifically about new grad salaries. It's not public information, but perusing glassdoor, H1B, acquaintances, that type of thing. I thought FAANG all adjust for location, with Bay Area being at the top. Is there any evidence that starting salaries are the same regardless of location? It isn't in London compared to the Bay Area, nor was it in Chicago when I lived there, based on people I knew at some of those companies. This is the first time I've heard that starting salaries are identical regardless of location. I'm happy to be proven wrong.
• okfine 8y ago
  "If Canadian companies were willing" This comes up in every thread about Canada, but it seems a lapse of logic to anthropomorphize a market like this. The market doesn't "will" anything, and people's willingness to offer/accept a salary is more a consequence of local conditions than a cause. Those conditions include the option of getting paid more if you're willing to leave the country, which some are. Presumably that affects the market for those who choose to remain, but it would be interesting to know by how much. It's not obvious. Canadian companies complain about lack of talent about as much as their employees complain about lack of salary. Isn't it a sign of a market reaching its level when both sides complain about the price but nevertheless accept it?
  • dblohm7 8y ago
    Well, the Canadian employees are moving south. They clearly aren't accepting it.
    • okfine 8y ago
      I meant employees of Canadian companies, who by definition are. (I edited it to say "their employees" instead of "Canadian employees". Hopefully that will help.)
      • jonathanyc 8y ago
        If “Canadian tech companies have employees” is your criterion for Canada’s tech companies paying good wages, you’re in for a bad time. TFA is about Canadian employees leaving for the US for better wages, as the other commenter pointed out.
        • okfine 8y ago
          I didn't say they were paying "good" wages, but that they are paying market wages. The argument that Canadian software salaries aren't a market, but rather a stubborn choice by companies not to do the right thing, is curiously magical. The question is, what would change the situation? Not some change of heart by companies to finally do the right thing, or come to their senses about what their self-interest really is. Those aren't real things. To change it would require some change in the fundamentals, such as if the government made it harder for people to leave.
• mabbo 8y ago
  > staying in Canada to earn $40-50k CAD per year starting Amazon Toronto starts new grads at like $80-100k last I heard. It's not as good as you can get in Silicon Valley, but rent in Toronto (while still high) is much lower than in the Valley.
  • sidlls 8y ago
    What are rents like in Toronto? Are they $700 - $1300 per month lower (the difference of $20k - $40k net of taxes is about that)? If not, it doesn't make sense to work in Toronto. The same situation exists across the US. For example I can get a mortgage on a nice place in the Midwest that is half my current rent in SV. That amounts to about $24k/year. However I'd have take a pay cut of about $40k gross (or more) for a job with identical responsibilities and to live in a region with far fewer opportunities. It's a net loss.
    • digianarchist 8y ago
      I pay $1750 CAD for a 1 bed + den near to the subway line. It's around 700 sqft.
      • sidlls 8y ago
        Here's a CL search just to show you what you could get on the Peninsula. It's not the city, but it's close enough. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/pen/apa?sort=priceasc&nh=71&nh=74&nh=77&nh=80&nh=87&nh=88&min_bedrooms=1&max_bedrooms=1&minSqft=600&maxSqft=800&availabilityMode=0&sale_date=all+dates https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/pen/apa?sort=priceasc&nh... The "near downtown San Mateo" listing is a 5-minute bike ride from Caltrain, 600sq ft and US$1785. So about CAD$600 more than your rent.
        • analyst74 8y ago
          The equivalent of $1750 Toronto condo (modern high rise with all the amenities) is going to be very hard to find in SV except some of the newer constructions at $3500~4000. A friend has a one bedroom in San Mateo in the sub $3000 range. The building is very old, no amenities or views to speak of, and not even in-suite laundry.
• cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  Oh they're willing to pay for the talent. They just bring it in from the PRC or Eastern Europe, or India. And they can pay far less for that. I'm not opposed to immigration at all. But prior to coming to Google Canada most of the people I worked with in Toronto were not holders of Canadian degrees. They were recent immigrants, permanent residents and not citizens and therefore themselves unable to go to the US. Many of these people were underpaid significantly, and a lot of them mistreated, in my opinion. The homegrown talent from Waterloo, etc. had mostly left for the U.S. Some come back after a few years, but many never do. Add to that the dynamic of many American companies opening offices here as a 'nearshore' lower cost shop, where all the important and interesting decisions are made in the US and the Canadian shop's job is to just execute it.... crappy.