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Comment by canistr | Hacker News Reader

I've always believed that if one of GoogleMicrosoftAmazonFacebook etc. started opening up more major development offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal (but mainly Toronto), we would stop losing so much of our top talent to the US.

Competition would rise. And then we'd be able to create a much stronger talent pool, higher salaries in the tech community, and overall a better ecosystem. But none of these companies have really tapped into this system.

But it seems like no executive at these companies has figured it out yet!

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I feel almost hesitant to write this - but these executives have figured it out and it does not bode well for Canada. You guys are competing with India where you could pay people 1/4 the salary in Canada and get access to high quality talent. And there are so many so Valley expats who are dying to return home, that you can get access to senior management talent for India ver easily. CXO level salaries in India match that of the US - especially with the Flipkarts and OlaCabs out here. And cost of living is obviously much lower.

Long term, Canada will need to grow it's startup ecosystem and domestic markets. The top employers in India are all domestic at this point.

> I feel almost hesitant to write this - but these executives have figured it out and it does not bode well for Canada. You guys are competing with India where you could pay people 1/4 the salary in Canada and get access to high quality talent.

If that's the case, why do they bother coming to Waterloo to recruit and go through the hassle of paying SF salaries, relocation and sponsoring visas?

I'd be happy with a 30% pay cut vs SF if I could live/work in Toronto but right now it's closer to 60%. I can't be alone.

Because Indian visas are limited by H1B caps. I'm sorry, but that's pretty much the biggest reason.

Amazon and Microsoft both have relatively large development offices in Vancouver (Amazon's was supposed to be 1000 people). I don't believe these are staging offices either, like Facebook's is.

I work on hardware, so I don't know that much about hiring on the software side, but I haven't really heard that much has changed in hiring programmers since they opened their offices.

What is there for these companies in Canada? It seems a better idea to open development offices in other countries, that might be cheaper and have a bigger talent pool.

Canada has some decent ranking schools (UofT,Waterloo,UBC,SFU,etc.) and many Canadians don't want to move to the US (plus the Canadian dollar is worth less lately).

Yes, but even if Canada has a really big pool of talented developers for its size, the base problem is Canada's population size. According this ranking (http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universit...) Canada has 4 universities ranking in the TOP 100 for CS. The EU has 30. China has 5, and it's much cheaper.

Those rankings are a joke. Seriously, UBC ahead of Waterloo?

If I look here[1] the 'much cheaper' seems not to be that much. And ofcourse on the comparison part here [2]. I am currently around close to Shanghai but I live in Europe and the prices are quite comparable to north EU/US if I would want the same living standard. In the south (GR/ES/PT) and east of the EU it is cheaper than here and I find it's also cheaper there than in Beijing if I compare living standard again.

[1] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp [2] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp

Well, the cost of living does not matter to the company; the issue for them are the salaries. According this[1], the average salary for a software developer in Shanghai is 150k RMB. That's like 30.5k Canadian dollars. The average salary for a software developer in Vancouver is more than double of that[2].

Changing the topic... I'm not so sure if Southern Europe is cheaper than Shanghai. The two main cities of Spain rank higher in cost of living than Shanghai, according your link. I guess that defining the "cost of living" is a really complicated problem.

[1]: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/shanghai-software-enginee... [2]: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/vancouver-software-develo...

Yeah I think it is also who you ask. And Glassdoor is also a bit wonky; all companies I speak to here are crying they have to offer 350k-800k RMB otherwise devs (seniors) just go elsewhere. And that's Vancouver salaries.

Such as? (Genuinely curious)

Canada also has the same language, can have the same time zone as any US location, is closer (no overseas flights) and has established trade relationships with the US.

EU is a clear example. And then you have China and India, that have a smaller percentage of educated people, but have such a big populations that their elites can be excellent.

The issue with Canada is that it's pretty small, population wise. I guess that for those big American companies is simpler to bring the -relatively- small number of Canadians to the US.

I've known quite a few skilled developers that have been unemployed up here in Canada for one small reason or another, there does seem like plenty of opportunity for Moneyball-style recruiting. I gather most companies won't open in other countries because of the tax advantage [1]. Hopefully the increased liquidity of the job market doesn't increase short term interests in the already expensive housing market.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-burgerking-idUSKBN...

Some of us won’t go to work in the U.S. for any company for any reason, whereas we might consider working for an American company in Canada. I’m one (and as a dual-citizen, I could work in the U.S.), and Tim Bray (as an example) is another. He left Google because they insisted that he work in Mountain View, where Amazon has an office in Vancouver, where he lives.

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