4 ms·

If you get paid 20% more but spend 20% of your salary on services you wouldn't need to buy otherwise - isn't it parity already?

by ajuc 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago
> If you get paid 20% more I think you are possibly massively underestimating how much it is possible to get paid as even an average software developer in the US. Like literally off by an entire order of magnitude. I would guess it's more like 100%-400% more for equivalent jobs, and many people at. Plus your US job covers your healthcare etc.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  That's really about location and specific skillsets. An "average" developer can be hired in 2nd tier cities for $70-90k salary. Long time ago I worked in the US company based out of the Toronto area that ended up with IT ops people in call centers all over the US and Canada. It worked really well -- the Canadian developers were awesome, and IT type people are easy to train. They seemed to be able to attract well educated graduates with locally competitive salaries that were below average by US standards. Over the years I've dealt with a few smaller Canadian consultancies and they always seemed to punch above their weight. If you can provide good work, there is alot of Canadian talent that wants to work in Canada.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    Likewise there is a lot of US talent that wants to work in some place that isn't the Bay Area.
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      That statement often gets eyerolls on HN because there's a very high concentration of users in a few specific places! The weird thing is that all of the players have significant people investments outside of the US. These often start as support and maintenance operations but often grow into more over time. It's legitimately surprising to me that companies don't "offshore" to Cincinnati, Minneapolis or Tampa. IBM used to have success doing that, for example. Defense contractors too, although obviously there is a political and a "be close to the customer" element to having engineers next to an air force base.
- holtalanm 6y ago
  doesn't that depend on where you live, though? A Software Engineer in the bay area gets paid a lot more than a Software Engineer with equivalent experience in the mid-west.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    But there's almost nowhere in Canada or Europe where you can get the kind of $750k packages that you see fairly routinely for normal developers at ultra elite companies like Google in the Bay Area. How can Canada or Europe really compete with that?
    - myrion 6y ago
      In no small part by not being the US. Currently, no salary would be enough to motivate me to move there, f.ex.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      $750K is a lot in almost any context for non executives. There are literally thousands upon thousands in Europe who could have those jobs because of the skills they've got,but they choose not to because: they'd rather live in their own country,family dependencies, existing social networking,lack of purely financial motivation and etc.
    - ajuc 6y ago
      By being a much more pleasant place to live. I live in one of the less wealthy EU countries. Almost everybody have 26 days of paid leave a year here. If I'm sick it's additional paid leave. University education and healthcare is free. Retirement is handled as well (but you got to save something yourself additionally if you want quality time on retirement). There's a combined year of paid maternity/paternity leave for each kid. Cities are clean and safe, police shoots like 100 bullets a year nationally and usually it's warning shots. There were no mass shootings, ever. Last time police killed someone without obvious explanation it was a huge scandal and it's still discussed 4 years later on national level. I use a car once a month at most, usually I ride a bike or just walk everywhere. There's also public transport that's cheap, clean and dependable (not so great during the pandemic though). There's no social stigma associated with walking/biking or using public transport. Property tax is almost nonexistent, if you work as a senior developer you can buy several flats in a big city, rent them, and live from that, if you wish. You can buy a flat in a big city for about 5 years of average developer's salary. All the costs of living are set for people who earn less than 1/5th of what you earn. You have all the interesting countries right there, you can visit them by bike, car, train, or fly (if you are flexible with the date usually you can find 2-way flights for less than $100 between any 2 places in EU). I mean it would be nice to have millions of USD but if I have to deal with the paperwork, no holidays to speak of, spend hours in traffic every day, and afterwards the only significant difference in quality of life is a few more 0s on my bank account - nah, I'll pass. It would probably be different if I wanted to start a global business.
ByteJockey 6y ago
If you're salary in Canada, you're probably paying that 20% (at least) in taxes.
TMWNN 6y ago
Why do you assume that the hordes of Canadians who migate to the US for work are stupid? There are about three times as many Canadians living in the US than Americans living in Canada. The US has about nine times as many people as Canada, so a Canadian is about 27 times more likely to move to the US than an American is to move to Canada. Are they all unable to calculate correctly whether doing so benefits them?
- indigochill 6y ago
  My very narrow observation based on being an American living in Scandinavia and trying to explain to my brother who's very red-blooded American why I believe the high taxes are a net benefit is that Americans (speaking very generally, of course) are hung up on money in the bank account over basically every other consideration. So when an American with that mindset looks at a place like Canada or Scandinavia, they'll nope right out of that because there's no way it'll put as much money into their bank account. I, on the other hand, think that high taxes end up benefitting everyone through greater services for those down on their luck which seems to translate to less desperation, less resentment, less classism, less crime. Basically overall far better peace of mind for all involved even though getting filthy rich isn't as much a thing. It's totally possible there are other circumstances at play here like the relative homogeneity of Scandinavian countries relative to the US so this is just a working hypothesis at the moment.
  - toolz 6y ago
    Theticket issue that comes to mind with social safety nets is healthcare and no country comes even close to spending as much on healthcare per capital as the US. We're talking double the amount spent by nearly every other country. Our issues do not seem to be rooted in a lack of funding.
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    >I, on the other hand, think that high taxes end up benefitting everyone through greater services for those down on their luck which seems to translate to less desperation, less resentment, less classism, less crime. That's a perfectly reasonable decision. That said, far more Scandinavians have calculated that they would rather have the US approach than the other way around. Whether on an absolute or (especially) per capita basis, far more Swedes and Norwegians move to the US than follow your lead and move to Scandinavia.
jariel 6y ago
More like you get paid 1.5-3x more in the US and most things are cheaper, except for housing in SF. Unfortunately, it's not close to parity. Maybe for some jobs. There are also career issues - there are just very, very few places in Canada where you can go on to earn 'mid/late career big bucks' in tech.
- tecleandor 6y ago
  I'd review healthcare too...
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    Daycare and college too. In Canada, all the expensive stuff is cheap but the cheap stuff is expensive.
umanwizard 6y ago
Like what? Anyone with a professional-class job in the US (what I assume we’re talking about here) has health insurance paid for by their employer.
- ajuc 6y ago
  > what I assume we’re talking about here Why?
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    Because at least in the US, it’s very hard to get a visa for a blue-collar or working-class job, so there isn’t even a possibility of moving countries to work one.
  - austhrow743 6y ago
    Those are where the US excels in compensation compared to other countries. Those are what you generally need to be able to consider working in other countries. Those are largely what the readership of a software VC firm forum are going to have.
    - ajuc 6y ago
      But are those the majority of Canadian workers?
dblohm7 6y ago
My American colleagues make substantially more that I do, plus a good health insurance plan.
jbay808 6y ago
When I graduated from school, I was under the impression that the difference was ~20%. I wish I had known that I would actually have qualified for compensation about 400% higher in the US. I realized that eventually.

If you get paid 20% more but spend 20% of your salary on services you wouldn't need to buy otherwise - isn't it parity already?

by ajuc 6y ago

If you get paid 20% more but spend 20% of your salary on services you wouldn't need to buy otherwise - isn't it parity already?

chrisseaton 6y ago

> If you get paid 20% more I think you are possibly massively underestimating how much it is possible to get paid as even an average software developer in the US. Like literally off by an entire order of magnitude. I would guess it's more like 100%-400% more for equivalent jobs, and many people at. Plus your US job covers your healthcare etc.

Spooky23 6y ago
That's really about location and specific skillsets. An "average" developer can be hired in 2nd tier cities for $70-90k salary. Long time ago I worked in the US company based out of the Toronto area that ended up with IT ops people in call centers all over the US and Canada. It worked really well -- the Canadian developers were awesome, and IT type people are easy to train. They seemed to be able to attract well educated graduates with locally competitive salaries that were below average by US standards. Over the years I've dealt with a few smaller Canadian consultancies and they always seemed to punch above their weight. If you can provide good work, there is alot of Canadian talent that wants to work in Canada.
- DFHippie 6y ago
  Likewise there is a lot of US talent that wants to work in some place that isn't the Bay Area.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    That statement often gets eyerolls on HN because there's a very high concentration of users in a few specific places! The weird thing is that all of the players have significant people investments outside of the US. These often start as support and maintenance operations but often grow into more over time. It's legitimately surprising to me that companies don't "offshore" to Cincinnati, Minneapolis or Tampa. IBM used to have success doing that, for example. Defense contractors too, although obviously there is a political and a "be close to the customer" element to having engineers next to an air force base.
holtalanm 6y ago
doesn't that depend on where you live, though? A Software Engineer in the bay area gets paid a lot more than a Software Engineer with equivalent experience in the mid-west.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  But there's almost nowhere in Canada or Europe where you can get the kind of $750k packages that you see fairly routinely for normal developers at ultra elite companies like Google in the Bay Area. How can Canada or Europe really compete with that?
  - myrion 6y ago
    In no small part by not being the US. Currently, no salary would be enough to motivate me to move there, f.ex.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    $750K is a lot in almost any context for non executives. There are literally thousands upon thousands in Europe who could have those jobs because of the skills they've got,but they choose not to because: they'd rather live in their own country,family dependencies, existing social networking,lack of purely financial motivation and etc.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    By being a much more pleasant place to live. I live in one of the less wealthy EU countries. Almost everybody have 26 days of paid leave a year here. If I'm sick it's additional paid leave. University education and healthcare is free. Retirement is handled as well (but you got to save something yourself additionally if you want quality time on retirement). There's a combined year of paid maternity/paternity leave for each kid. Cities are clean and safe, police shoots like 100 bullets a year nationally and usually it's warning shots. There were no mass shootings, ever. Last time police killed someone without obvious explanation it was a huge scandal and it's still discussed 4 years later on national level. I use a car once a month at most, usually I ride a bike or just walk everywhere. There's also public transport that's cheap, clean and dependable (not so great during the pandemic though). There's no social stigma associated with walking/biking or using public transport. Property tax is almost nonexistent, if you work as a senior developer you can buy several flats in a big city, rent them, and live from that, if you wish. You can buy a flat in a big city for about 5 years of average developer's salary. All the costs of living are set for people who earn less than 1/5th of what you earn. You have all the interesting countries right there, you can visit them by bike, car, train, or fly (if you are flexible with the date usually you can find 2-way flights for less than $100 between any 2 places in EU). I mean it would be nice to have millions of USD but if I have to deal with the paperwork, no holidays to speak of, spend hours in traffic every day, and afterwards the only significant difference in quality of life is a few more 0s on my bank account - nah, I'll pass. It would probably be different if I wanted to start a global business.

ByteJockey 6y ago

If you're salary in Canada, you're probably paying that 20% (at least) in taxes.

TMWNN 6y ago

Why do you assume that the hordes of Canadians who migate to the US for work are stupid? There are about three times as many Canadians living in the US than Americans living in Canada. The US has about nine times as many people as Canada, so a Canadian is about 27 times more likely to move to the US than an American is to move to Canada. Are they all unable to calculate correctly whether doing so benefits them?

indigochill 6y ago
My very narrow observation based on being an American living in Scandinavia and trying to explain to my brother who's very red-blooded American why I believe the high taxes are a net benefit is that Americans (speaking very generally, of course) are hung up on money in the bank account over basically every other consideration. So when an American with that mindset looks at a place like Canada or Scandinavia, they'll nope right out of that because there's no way it'll put as much money into their bank account. I, on the other hand, think that high taxes end up benefitting everyone through greater services for those down on their luck which seems to translate to less desperation, less resentment, less classism, less crime. Basically overall far better peace of mind for all involved even though getting filthy rich isn't as much a thing. It's totally possible there are other circumstances at play here like the relative homogeneity of Scandinavian countries relative to the US so this is just a working hypothesis at the moment.
- toolz 6y ago
  Theticket issue that comes to mind with social safety nets is healthcare and no country comes even close to spending as much on healthcare per capital as the US. We're talking double the amount spent by nearly every other country. Our issues do not seem to be rooted in a lack of funding.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >I, on the other hand, think that high taxes end up benefitting everyone through greater services for those down on their luck which seems to translate to less desperation, less resentment, less classism, less crime. That's a perfectly reasonable decision. That said, far more Scandinavians have calculated that they would rather have the US approach than the other way around. Whether on an absolute or (especially) per capita basis, far more Swedes and Norwegians move to the US than follow your lead and move to Scandinavia.

jariel 6y ago

More like you get paid 1.5-3x more in the US and most things are cheaper, except for housing in SF. Unfortunately, it's not close to parity. Maybe for some jobs. There are also career issues - there are just very, very few places in Canada where you can go on to earn 'mid/late career big bucks' in tech.

tecleandor 6y ago
I'd review healthcare too...
- mattkrause 6y ago
  Daycare and college too. In Canada, all the expensive stuff is cheap but the cheap stuff is expensive.

umanwizard 6y ago

Like what? Anyone with a professional-class job in the US (what I assume we’re talking about here) has health insurance paid for by their employer.

ajuc 6y ago
> what I assume we’re talking about here Why?
- umanwizard 6y ago
  Because at least in the US, it’s very hard to get a visa for a blue-collar or working-class job, so there isn’t even a possibility of moving countries to work one.
- austhrow743 6y ago
  Those are where the US excels in compensation compared to other countries. Those are what you generally need to be able to consider working in other countries. Those are largely what the readership of a software VC firm forum are going to have.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    But are those the majority of Canadian workers?

dblohm7 6y ago

My American colleagues make substantially more that I do, plus a good health insurance plan.

jbay808 6y ago

When I graduated from school, I was under the impression that the difference was ~20%. I wish I had known that I would actually have qualified for compensation about 400% higher in the US. I realized that eventually.