Vancouver’s high-tech hurdle: Attracting top-level talent
theglobeandmail.com
theglobeandmail.com
Your shocked to find out that the pay is literally half in Vancouver. Housing is also half in Seattle, everything is cheaper in Seattle. You really can't tell the difference between the two cities otherwise, and home is 3 hours away. You do the sensible thing and move to Seattle.
2 years later, you work for microsoft or some company down the bay area and start getting your green card. Later on you see that the average income in vancouver is comparable the average income of Reno,NV.
Anyone with half a brain who is from the area will move to Seattle.
I think this is changing. There are great new companies to work for in Vancouver who depend on access to top-tier talent and are willing to pay for it.
We [1] have hired several folks from SF and most of our alums tend to head straight to the Valley, so it's clear that we're competing on the global stage for talent. This by nature means average compensation that must be competitive. Others must be seeing this too.
[1] Axiom Zen: https://axiomzen.co
Even if you land a higher paying job in Vancouver your salary is probably around 80% of what you would get in Seattle and you are paid in $CAD vs. $USD.
I'd be happy with 80% of market salary in Seattle if it means I could work in Vancouver. The reality is actually closer to 50% like the OP mentioned, even before taking into account exchange rates: https://angel.co/salaries
From the perspective of someone who wants to stay in Vancouver, this is just sad.
[1] http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/07/02/sfs_median_asking_r...
[2] http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/S-F-condo-market-pa...
I have a fair number of concerns about Canada, but personal safety usually isn't one of them.
I can't confidently say the same about the states though. A non-negligible percentage of the population there just seems actively hostile towards visible minorities. Being born in China myself, I'd definitely fall into the visible minorities camp in the US, and with the lax gun laws and whatnot, I'd be extremely worried for my life if some conflict arose between the US and China and I was still around.
I realize it's probably not a very rational fear, and I don't have any hard statistics to back any of it up. But safety of mind does have a tangible value to me. Whether or not it's worth more than half of my potential salary is another story though.
imo, African-Americans and people who are visibly muslim or appear to so be to morons, such as Sikhs, get the bulk of the discrimination.
Fingers crossed neither our government nor the Chinese government are stupid enough to get into a shooting war. Both sides seem to bluster a lot but the ties that bind are massive exports from China to the US. I think the chances of serious conflict in a peaceful relationship spanning 4 decades continue to decrease.
Good or bad, being the "model minority" in the US has its advantages.
This has not been a deal breaker for anyone I know in Seattle but they've mentioned their disappointment, having gotten used to a certain lifestyle in Vancouver. Depending your interests Vancouver's easily car free lifestyle might not matter at all, or it might be worth the paycut.
I lived in Vancouver for most of my life, and love the city. I'd love nothing more than to live and work here all my life, but I'm really having trouble justifying not crossing the border and more than doubling my salary like most of my friends have done.
From my experience job searching so far, even without mentioning salary, the sheer number of interesting jobs is just sorely lacking, even when comparing to other Canadian tech hubs like Toronto. Seattle, SF, and other US cities are just in an entirely different league.
A quick, unscientific comparison on AngelList definitely matches my anecdotal observations: https://angel.co/salaries
To employers in Canada:
If you want world-class talent, you need to be willing to pay world-class salaries.
Slightly above market salary in Canada just isn't enough anymore, because market salary in Canada is just crap, and anyone who isn't a complete sucker knows this.
This isn't even about trying to steal talent from the states or elsewhere. Canada is literally bleeding talent from its own top schools. Anyone who's good enough to be hired across the border tends to end up leaving because they'd have to sacrifice so much potential earnings to stay.
And if you do offer a world-class salary, you need to advertise the crap out of it by giving us the cold, hard numbers. Otherwise candidates tend to assume that by "competitive salary" you mean competitive with the pitiful salary we usually hear when we apply to Canadian companies.
I spent most of the last few years traveling, lots of time in Asia, and this is the disappointing truth. China is the notable exception where there are real exits and (no surprise) lots of investment money, talent, and ideas.
Vancouver had a large AAA game industry for a decade or so. It was very much driven by exits -- all the small/medium studios got bought by Microsoft/EA/etc. The fever is over and AAA has all but collapsed in BC (and possibly the world -- I think there's been a big shift to indie games).
I wonder if the lack of exits is a Canadian vs US culture thing? Is there data that shows fewer exits per capita? Are we Canadians more likely to settle for less? There's not that many huge Canadian tech companies, and I can think of a couple that failed due to hubris (RIM, Nortel).
In SF, you can get a great idea implemented and exit via acquisition or acquihire before you've figured out how you're going to turn users into revenue. The money flows relatively freely in the right circumstances. In Canada, that feels far less likely, so even if I exit with $10m I still have to figure out not just how to make a great idea into a great product, but also how I'm going to make revenue from it, since I can't make any assumptions about being able to drum up external investment (since I don't have rich friends) or arrange an acquisition (unless I shop it around internationally).
Canadian visa policies got all kinds of foreigners investing big money into real estate in the city while not creating any actual jobs in the process.
So there isn't much of an economy supporting the city + thus a pretty small talent pool for any prospective startups to draw from...
But aside from money there is the respect factor. I'm not convinced that tech is respected in Vancouver.
So take a triple downgrade and work for business folks who hate you?
Edit: I work for a startup that advertised here in the monthly who's hiring threads.
Edit: one previous job here locally I did the same tests and exposed bugs weekly on my own time, fixed countless authentication bypasses, and plugged a memory leak that had been slowing down the app for years before I was hired and when I asked for a raise or meaningful options the department manager gave me an unbelievable speech about how they don't like workers with only financial goals in mind, said I had no passion for what they were building if money was my motivation and suggested I quit. This was one of the top Vancouver tech industry outfits constantly shilled in the media. My salary at the time was $70k (2013).
Would be very helpful for the community in general, you seem to have a great knowledge to share!
What are you able to tax deduct besides % rent used solely for business?
Lease vehicle?
Top tier talent is just not for Canada.
Unlike SF, Vancouver builds plenty of condo apartment buildings, so if you wanted to buy a single bedroom apartment you could do so for $300k-400k. I'm not saying that's not expensive considering the average income in Vancouver, the real estate market is definitely in a bubble, but it's at least within reach, whereas detached housing prices exist in their own bizarre reality.
[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/vancouvers...
One particular company had the guts to call me, tell me they really liked me but wouldn't hire me because of the visa situation, and asked me if instead I could direct other people like me in their direction. It doesn't get much more rude than that.
Bottom line, I ended up working for the public health sector, who not only sponsored my visa but also helped me through the process.
So, dear Vancouver startup scene, if you want to attract talent, start by getting off your high horses.
From my own experience this past year: California-born and raised, I was in the market over the last 6 months, looking for software engineering jobs and applied to dozens and dozens of jobs in Vancouver, ranging from tiny startups to large companies. Not only did I receive hardly any callbacks, the ones that did politely mentioned that they were looking for Canadians first, then they'll look outside (then never got back to me). When applying to startups / larger companies in the Bay Area, I was interviewing, writing code challenges, etc., constantly as well as courted for positions.
On the flip side, for Canadians across their own country, Vancouver does seem like the "hip" place to be. I have tech friends in Toronto, Montreal, and smaller cities and the lot of them are considering heading westward, and understandably so. When I visited Vancouver (Gastown, etc.), it seemed very exciting and full of the startup life. My own couple friends showed me their own startups and it felt very "Silicon Valley"-esque.
I should also point out that one of my friends did offer me a position at his company, but the pay was incredibly low (while rent would remain very high), which I believe to be a symptom of most places outside of California (or maybe America, not sure).
The BD interview was supposed to be a friendly tech phone chat but actually was a grilling by an HR lady that knew nothing about tech.
What I'm trying to say is these companies don't know what the fuck they're doing.
Ahh, there it is. The mythical "engineer shortage" was bound to pop up, as it does in every single article about tech labor. If there is really a shortage of engineers (supply), then wages (price) would increase to the point where supply met demand. Is this happening?
I don't think this is a very useful hair to split because it doesn't tell us much about what dynamics are actually going on. As someone with a lot of experience on both sides of the tech company hiring equation, and I think there are two main issues.
First is notorious difficulty of quantifying tech skills. It's worse than a market for lemons, because even the potential hire themselves is prone to misestimate their own skillset. Second, tech skills aren't really fungible. Yes, we often talk about how a skilled engineer can easily pick up a new language, but it's not just languages, it's also problem domains, and work environments which vary widely and can greatly impact the utility of a given person. With job tenures being so short these days, it's difficult to invest a lot in training someone when you fear they will leave in a year and you'll be back to square one. I might be willing to raise the salary dramatically for the perfect candidate (who may not even exist), but I can't compete with Google and Facebook for the undeveloped talent because my company just doesn't have the cash flow.
I'm in the market for a car. I'm willing to spend $35K. I'd love to buy a Tesla model S! I figure $35K is fair because you never know what's wrong with a used car. Yet, I've been looking for years and can't find a Tesla for such a price. Therefore, there must be a car shortage.
Also it just seems futile to me to try to find that one special talented executive when we've seen so many times where a high-priced executive is hired only to see them not make a difference and resign early with a huge golden parachute.
We also have light rail called Skytrain that heads south and east from Downtown, but I suspect the furthest this reaches is about 30km away.
The reality couldn't be more different, as Translink is one of the most effective transit systems in western North America and is a model for transit planners. https://www.biv.com/article/2015/3/who-takes-transit-work-me...
Once one leaves Vancouver proper the Metro Vancouver area has the same sprawling highways as any other region, but Translink's service area is massive (imagine every transit service and organization in every town in the Bay Area being one service (ok Bay Area is a bit bigger)) and you can seamlessly go from Vancouver all the way to White Rock at the border within the system on one ticket. The Evergreen line which will connect the system to Port Moody and Coquitlam should come on line in 2016.
This isn't silicon Valley, this is shitty vancouver where "me too" companies are the norm. D-wave is the only company going for a moonshot here.
I have had serious job offers here at less than 1/3 of my usual rate. I've been told that what I'm looking for (what I'm already getting for remote work) is director or C-level. "There's much more to consider than compensation" is a reasonably common excuse from recruiters, but the fact of the matter is that if you are trying to hire competent senior engineers for $30/hr, of course you're going to lose out to places that are paying amounts that are above a living wage.
Vancouver's okay, for sure, but being the self-proclaimed "lifestyle capital of the world" only carries weight if you get a good work-life balance, and can afford to do the things that you want to do.
It's true that Vancouver can attract talent from SF/Seattle easier than Toronto, for example, but conversely it also means Vancouver/BC natives are way more likely to jump to SF/Seattle since they are so close.
The problem with the tech scene (or even starting any business in Canada) is that there's a lack of investment dollars (many rich Canadians would rather park their money in foreign stocks), and real estate prices are absurd relative to wages (since real estate is seen as the 'safest' place to park your dollars).
Corporate business culture in Canada isn't great either - it's overly conservative and very slow to change and adopt new ideas. Apart from our banks, we have no corporations that are even remotely competitive on the world stage (maybe Bombardier).
I love Canada, but when I'm done my degree, I'll probably be moving abroad, like most of my educated relatives have already done...
This is just my anecdotal sampling, but I wouldn't assume there's a shortage of tech _workers_ in the area.
And remember, much of the "tech" startup scene is all about pushing automated marketing ideas based on commodity software out the door, not pushing the boundaries of tech itself. This really doesn't require top-tier tech worker talent, just reasonable competence and follow-through.
Just like when people complain about a lack of STEM workers, what they mean is a lack of STEM workers willing to work for their shitty wages...
In either case, as the offered wages go up, workers magically come out of the woodwork.
Salaries here are going up with the advent of bigger companies like MS, Amazon, Hootsuite etc, and it wont be long before 6 figures is just a baseline. However for executive level people, yeah I can see it being a really difficult option. Assuming you want a house and have 2 kids, thats like a minimum of 150k (1M for a house, childcare is a fucking nightmare at $1500 per kid per month) right there to even hope of having a decent lifestyle.
USD/CAD exchange is insane (1:1.3)
You are insane. Are you even being honest with yourself here? Why would you put up with less pay and higher cost of living? What better lifestyle is there to speak of that bigger cities south of the border doesn't provide you? The mountains and ocean? They got that over there too.
The only reason I think you might be saying this is the same thing people without any other choices say, that it is the best choice. This is textbook cognitive dissonance.
edit: well looks like you are a recruiter which explains a lot why you might be pushing this crazy idea. I've ever heard of Zymeworks Inc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7337161.
yes I have been to both. yes I still think you are crazy. yes I've never heard of your company called Zymeworks Inc. which explains why it pays less (as you already mentioned it is even lower than what other senior positions in vancouver pays since it's a small company), yes it is significantly lower than US and by 60% if you factor in exchange rate. Your arrogant attitude doesn't help at all. You seem convinced that SV engineers can do more with less money. I don't think even skilled engineers would work for that kind of salary here in Vancouver but you might not be after quality but high turnover. Would anyone reading what you wrote and how you are behaving really convince people here and elsewhere to work for your company where they insist that people need to take less pay so they can have a better lifestyle? You don't need to do a study on every startup in existence because it'd be a waste of time especially since you've already mentioned you are amongst the bottom barrell in terms of pay compared to SV and local, might be a good company who knows but I've hard time believing you don't have any issues with bringing someone from SV to Vancouver that offers 60% less pay and same or more cost of living compared to SV. You really don't know what you are talking about.
"Physician, heal thyself"
Not quite what I was expecting from the title.
As a data scientist in Montreal considering a move to Vancouver, how is the hiring situation for technical work?
That said, Vancouver also has a lot of biotech and energy firms, though they're not as flashy and well-publicized, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have data which needs sciencing. That might be worth looking into as well.
It says something about the labor market when employers refer to potential workers like they would talk about a show dog.
The problem is I get paid 2x the local salary to work for US startups remotely, and paid in USD a stronger currency. Everybody I know works remotely for Toronto, or US companies so I imagine power execs from around the world don't want to come here for the same low compensation and high income tax reasons that force us lowly devs to contract outside the province. I haven't seen much local hiring with options either, and if they do offer options they are tiny so why would I dedicate a huge chunk of my life to make somebody else's company rich while making half the salary of my clone in SV who has full options.
There is a cultural difference in work ethics in Asia and the West. Like I repeatedly saw an overwhelming tendency for Asian engineers to overwork to appear more impressive while non-Asian engineers seemed to leave exactly on time. Overall, I think it's pathetic that there is this outdated working ethic still being played out amongst the Asian community but it's also why the salaries are suppressed, why overwhelming workforce of startups in Vancouver are Asians. The stereotypes is being self enforced by Asian engineers and it was pretty sad to see. One senior Asian engineer (probably making less than $70k/year) loved pointing out how early I was leaving (leaving at 5:00pm is too early apparently) and that I wasn't doing enough. He explained how in Asia he used to work on weekends and that this was the norm. It's pretty much a shit show but I saw this happen at other startups as well and pretty much put me off from ever working again in Vancouver.
In fact I'm not surprised that lot of vancouverites here are working remotely for American clients. The work/life balance culture is horrid for the most part, far less pay and competitive landscape commoditizing each other. There are plenty of sweatshop employers in vancouver who fully exploit this fact. However, enough is enough, once you remove yourself from such toxic job market you start finding out just how much money there is to be made outside of Vancouver. I still get recruiters trying to pitch me on some job and they are becoming increasingly pushy and spammy. Not all of them are bad but it appears the problem in the article is very real, there are literally not many willing engineers who respect themselves to put up with low pay and crappy work/life balance. And so far the HN vancouverite users seems to be exactly doing that, working remotely for a market outside Vancouver or physically moving to American cities. I can also see new grads are looking for jobs outside of Vancouver, so the brain drain is no longer the case where somebody relocates but as Holmes illustrates in the article, it's becoming decentralized.
If you quit your job in Vancouver, and you found a gig for American client, it would make financial sense especially because the cost of living does not match up to the average salary here.
A city is more than just cost of living and housing prices. It is nothing without the people and community. there was a recent debate of how lacking Vancouver is in terms of community and that people were largely feeling isolated in Vancouver. I remember someone from Brazil accurately pointing out how difficult it was to make friends or even talk to people. On the surface they seem receptive and helpful to newcomers but how dare they attempt at some friendship or extend the conversation. This also spills into the night life scene in Vancouver which is pretty much dead on arrival, shuts down after 1 AM, lack of disposal income means a lot less happier people and more people spending time at home, smoking reefer and indulging in some activity with friends they probably knew since kids.
If you saw the bar culture here it's pretty much everybody keeping to themselves at their own tables and not wanting to be bothered. Like even a friendly attempt is typically shot down quickly. It's almost like people are on guard and they think that you want something from them when all you are doing is just small chat and trying to meet new people.
I'm willing to put up with Vancouver for a while longer until I figure out which city I want to work remotely from but it certainly will be even a faster acceleration of the trend where the brain drain starts with someone exiting the local job market and finding new ones south of the border. Thanks to remote jobs, this brain drain is far more quicker and eventually devastating to the future of Vancouver's tech scene, since not even it's own inhabitants are willing to work here, how could they convince SV engineer to work here? It's hypocrisy at best.
I'm not sure if you ever been to UBC or SFU, all the foreign students chill with themselves. Have you ever seen a white guy identifying himself with a group of Korean foreign students who came here to study and barely speak a word of English? Or how often do you see a group of mixed cliques compared to single race cliques even amongst those that grew up here? Even for those that grew up here, the cliques are largely based on ethnicity. We might identify as Canadians but for the visible minority, the Canadian experience is vastly different from the mainstream one.
Just because you say it doesn't exist doesn't mean it goes away. Who says other cities are singing kumbaya? That wasn't my point, I was just offering a more reality based view that diversity that was being discussed above is largely politically correct and doesn't help to the overall discussion.
If you want to talk mixed couples it's happening in the States as well. But the difference between Canada and US is that Canada has no melting pot, there is definitely a lack of the same level of cohesiveness. Plenty of visible minority Canadians still see themselves identify as their native ethnicity. Why is this? How many times have you seen someone described as Canadian as being non-white in mainstream media? Apart from olympic medalists, celebrity or some power figure, the vast majority of visible minorities in Canada are not at all viewed in the same light.
I've seen a Pakistani taxi driver who used to be a surgeon and a Taiwanese pianist working as a janitor. Can these people honestly feel like they are accepted and treated as Canadians? Can we say that they are given the same equal choices and opportunities? No. Instead you see incompetent people running the governments, people with half the wits running companies. Don't fucking tell me we live in a perfect world where visible minorities aren't given a hard time. No, minorities have to work harder, better and faster to get to the same place someone who is readily accepted by the mainstream because their ancestors 'took' the land that didn't belong to them and continues to oppress them. This land was taken by European settlers at gunpoint, and if you live by the gun, you die by the gun. There are no masters or prvileges being handed out based on race explicitly but it does not rule out that there still exists a deep divide on who is accepted as equal or not. Obviously that Pakistani surgeon shouldn't be a taxi driver but he has to because of the invisible hand which in turn is influenced by invisible walls we've built long time ago and still exists. It's getting better but we sure as shit can't pretend that the emperor wears no clothes.
edit: msie, I can no longer reply and you are going to just reply to every sentence without even making a cohesive argument for your case so I have to assume you are trolling. Your superb ability to use the character '>' is duly noted.
I said good day, sir.
So what? Diversity doesn't exclude this. But are you saying it's a BAD thing?
> just take a look at Richmond. Lot of shops and restaurants > don't even have signs or menus in English, it's all in Chinese.
There was a survey done by the municipal govt because of the Chinese sign controversy. 4% doesn't mean a lot. Vancouver has been home to many immigrant groups. There were Greek "enclaves", Italian "enclaves" and Ukrainian "enclaves" and Chinatown was an early Chinese "enclave". What's different now?
It seems that when people say "enclave" it's code for an isolated community that's perceived as a threat to the unity of the host community. I would say THAT definition of enclave doesn't fit here.
> I'm not sure if you ever been to UBC or SFU, all the foreign students chill with themselves.
Yes, it's understandable. If you and I were in Paris we'd be sticking together a lot and have Canadian flags on our backpacks.
> Have you ever seen a white guy identifying himself with a group of Korean foreign students who came here to study and barely speak a word of English?
I can't say, but I have seen white people hanging out with Asian Canadians and Canadians of other ethnicities.
> Plenty of Asian Canadians see themselves identify as their native ethnicity.
Is that a fact? I think many Asian Canadians identify themselves as Canadians but are dismayed that other people don't.
> But the difference between Canada and US is that Canada has no melting pot, there is definitely a lack of cohesion and a sense of unity.*
This difference is simplistic, overblown. Have you not seen the news of the rift between whites and blacks in the US? Of the discrimination against Muslims? Only recently did they legalize gay marriage but Canada has been united behind the concept for years.
> How many times have you seen someone described as Canadian as being non-white in mainstream media?*
That is a problem the mainstream media has and is really depressing.
>and a Taiwanese pianist working as a janitor. Can these
>people honestly feel like they are accepted and treated as
>Canadians? Can we say that they are given the same equal
>choices and opportunities? No.
You've just added the last paragraph and it completely changes the complexion of your post for me. Yes, I agree.
2. You've made numerous edits to your original post.
3. The initial post just mentioned diversity but you took umbrage with it trying to point out how flawed our diversity is. I was taking issue with that.
No, that's just plain wrong. I've seen/heard many instances where non-asian managers are overworking their staff. This is a problem with the entire tech industry (actually in other fields as well), don't blame it on one ethnicity.
Well, that's your opinion of what you saw. Have you asked the Asians why it is they "overwork"? And what of the non-Asians that were working past 5? What would you call it?
In fact, non-Asian co workers thought it was unfair and actually spoke out against them working overtime without need but it fell on deaf ears.
Also I'd use > or the quote formatting to make it clear you are replying to my excerpts to avoid confusion.