The Canadian environment is extremely fertile for exploitation by US companies though, and we're having some success working with them already. It helps that the exchange rate is favourable. I would like to see much more competition and American money around here if only to teach the crusty old guard what it means to be innovative.
I'd love to see services overtake natural resources as a main export because it would be more sustainable and it would improve the lives of regular people a lot more than, say, unrefined oil or softwood lumber do.
I really feel like funding/moving startups that don't require a specific geography could gain in Canada. Maybe the currency needs to stabilize first.
"American money around here if only to teach the crusty old guard what it means to be innovative"...I totally agree, I deal with big vendors, and smaller alternatives would be great.
This is the mindset that got Canada into this situation in the first place.
As a recent Waterloo grad, I've witnessed first-hand how the tech industry in Canada has been bleeding talent to the US, even from our own top schools. Just about everyone I know who's good enough to have offers from US companies have taken the offers and left.
And it's not hard to imagine why: the average "highly competitive" salary in Canada is pathetic compared to what you could be making in the US for a similar position.
I think Blackberry has been a prime example of a company hit by this. Even with the advantage of being literally next door to the Waterloo campus, most students I know treated it as nothing more than a "safety" in their co-op and grad job search. So in the end, the only students Blackberry ever had access to were the ones who weren't good enough for the US companies, and the few good ones who couldn't to go to the US for what ever reason.
I can't see this trend slowing any time soon, unless Canadian companies start offering salaries competitive with companies across the border, rather than just with their other Canadian neighbors.
The US is a very large place with a lot of cities, it has 30 cities the size of (or larger than) Vancouver. You can find good software engineers across the entire nation, including in lower cost locations. From Portland, to Las Vegas, to Kansas City, to Raleigh, to Atlanta, to Detroit, to Pittsburgh, to Tulsa etc. You have dozens of cities to choose from that will have good engineers.
There's no reason you'd need to pay bay area salaries or locate in Silicon Valley (or NY). Unless you're trying to build the next juggernaut tech-startup and are going to take on the VC to match (in which case that pays for the high salaries).
The only part that sucks is when I have to order parts or equipment from down south.
And that doesn't even account for take-home pay after taxes and the large Canadian urban markets' cost of living, since the tax brackets top out quite a bit lower in Canada (not that I think the higher taxes are a bad thing; I don't feel my taxes in the US are high enough).
- Cost of most goods is still more than the US since we import them
- House prices are higher
- Quality of developers isn't necessarily as high (less universities and less students choose CPSC)
For most Canadian software engineers it's more worthwhile to work remotely or to relocate.