Not to defend the wacky compensation vs. house prices ratio, but the SWE who earns less than C$100k in Vancouver is not the same SWE who's going to make US$350k

Not to defend the wacky compensation vs. house prices ratio, but the SWE who earns less than C$100k in Vancouver is not the same SWE who's going to make US$350k+ just by moving to NYC or SF. Not by a long shot, or they've been exceedingly bad at salary negotiation before and suddenly turn into an expert player upon emigration. (That said, there does seem to be somewhat of a lack of higher-end developer jobs compared to parts of the US.)