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I might have been, I'm not sure. But I do know several people who have moved up island citing low salary, cost of living and family lifestyle for the move. HN

I might have been, I'm not sure. But I do know several people who have moved up island citing low salary, cost of living and family lifestyle for the move. HN ate one of my earlier comments. So I'll try and rewrite it here from memory. Developer salaries are very depressed here in Victoria. You will often see "Senior" positions from $70K, more for large places like Abebooks (Amazon). Those go unfilled for months at a time. The friends I have that have moved upisland now earn > $140K by simply computing once a week to Vancouver for facetime. A recent sucessful immigrant friend from europe said to me (paraphrasing) "Everyone here has a trust fund and spends all their time trying to screw each other over". This is absolutely true. I know of one guy who had a modest exit, and now views programmers as labour - he treats them like shit and pays $30K for php/ruby developers. If you interviewed with him, he would make comments about outsourcing to india. As Patio11 might say, a pathological employer. But the point to be made is that I'm not surprised by this behaviour - I've encountered it myself several times. This is Victoria in a nutshell. It simply is not ready to respect talent and pay it well in order to build thriving businesses and an ecosystem. Sorry I'm so negative, but I'd like to see people succeed in the easiest fashion possible. Perhaps we need more meetups to start building networks of people building things? Housing/office space will be cheap sooner now that the mortgage rules are changing.

mock 14y ago
Actually, that's another good point. There are a lot of people working remotely here, as it's relatively quick to get to both Seattle and Vancouver (under an hour by float plane, and float planes don't have bullshit security lines). You can even give a little bit of a discount vs NYC or SV wages and come out ahead of what you'd do locally. I did that for a while, and I have a couple of friends doing it now for whom it's working out well. Once again, it's a matter of waiting for the good opportunities - unlike bigger hubs, there isn't the same sophistication in knowing who and how to hire in employers, nor the same raw demand for talent that lets someone walk out the door and be hired before they hit the street. I'd definitely be interested in some sort of meetup, if such a thing were going to happen... Also, don't get me started on local angels (both Victoria and Vancouver)... :-(
- spitfire 14y ago
  Oh god how I love the float planes. As a pilot I love watching them (and the smell of Jet-A at mocha house). As a passenger I love the relaxed experience. It is honestly, Victoria t at its best. You've hit the crux of it - sophistication. Or rather, having enough skill to recognize ones flaws and correct for them. This is something Victoria as a whole does not have. We don't have enough skilled players in order to sustain an ecosystem at the level needed to attract and retain that top level talent. Try looking for a senior python developer. That'll be tough. Now try looking for someone with machine learning, compiler design, mathematics or other hard but very useful skill. You just won't find them. So the companies in Victoria are stuck working on shallower problems. Usually with many competitors and without an ability to build a moat. Which means the people skilled in those hard skills move away to find employment, or do remote work.

mock 14y ago

Actually, that's another good point. There are a lot of people working remotely here, as it's relatively quick to get to both Seattle and Vancouver (under an hour by float plane, and float planes don't have bullshit security lines). You can even give a little bit of a discount vs NYC or SV wages and come out ahead of what you'd do locally. I did that for a while, and I have a couple of friends doing it now for whom it's working out well. Once again, it's a matter of waiting for the good opportunities - unlike bigger hubs, there isn't the same sophistication in knowing who and how to hire in employers, nor the same raw demand for talent that lets someone walk out the door and be hired before they hit the street. I'd definitely be interested in some sort of meetup, if such a thing were going to happen... Also, don't get me started on local angels (both Victoria and Vancouver)... :-(

spitfire 14y ago
Oh god how I love the float planes. As a pilot I love watching them (and the smell of Jet-A at mocha house). As a passenger I love the relaxed experience. It is honestly, Victoria t at its best. You've hit the crux of it - sophistication. Or rather, having enough skill to recognize ones flaws and correct for them. This is something Victoria as a whole does not have. We don't have enough skilled players in order to sustain an ecosystem at the level needed to attract and retain that top level talent. Try looking for a senior python developer. That'll be tough. Now try looking for someone with machine learning, compiler design, mathematics or other hard but very useful skill. You just won't find them. So the companies in Victoria are stuck working on shallower problems. Usually with many competitors and without an ability to build a moat. Which means the people skilled in those hard skills move away to find employment, or do remote work.