I don't think many software developers in Canada are facing that choice. Is there the opportunity to be 'more' secure in the States? Sure. But being a developer in Canada is hardly a bleak proposition.
5 years later, I'm pushing something like 8x what disposable income would have been by now if I compare with my old colleagues.
And that's even after I take out the extra expenses of my mortgage being 11x what my rent used to be (by choice, it was "only" 4x higher originally, since I lived in a rent controlled area for almost 30 years.
The difference is absolutely absurd. And since a lot of things don't vary in price with the average cost of living (cars are not more expensive south of the border. Neither are smartphones or restaurants), it matters.
I worked for a company that did just that: open an office in Canada in the same timezone as their American HQ to cut cost. The taxes, expenses, and complying with local laws at large scale (think: Quebec language laws) are real, and they almost ended up killing the office because the cost was too high. They absolutely were hiring more in the American office in the end from a pure cost perspective, and using the Canadian one to scale even though it was super expensive to run.
Now, its very likely it was them simply being inefficient and unprepared for it, but it doesn't really matter: its a real issue.
Now in the case of my current employer, we absolutely have international offices where getting head count is much cheaper, but to scale, we need offices everywhere where there's talent, and that includes in the big american metros. In my case, I just moved to get the $$$ of the American offices, that's all :)
People should be aware though, your example isn't even close to usual.
Work the numbers for a simple case - for round numbers take 100k/yr and 1000/month disposable. To do 8x that you are adding basically another 100k, post tax - so add another 35 k.
Do at this rate you have a salary multiple of 2.35. This just doesn't happen in general, for the same job. You may have an opportunity for a different job at 2.5 timed salary, but mostly people don't
Much more realistic is a 30% bump, which is still on the high end giving you a disposable income multiple of 2.5, which isn't bad.
Anyway, the numbers vary a bit with higher salary and rates, but mostly people won't see anywhere near 3x, let alone 8x - unless they are comparing very different jobs.
I was looking for my first job out of college, offers in Canada were 1/2 what they were in Seattle. Cost of living was lower than Vancouver. A TN visa was a low barrier. This story repeats over and over again.
Montreal is ridiculous since it is essentially NYC's favorite "nearshoring" . It's also big for game dev, which pays like crap even by Montreal standards.
Is it better in Edmonton? No idea. But with Vancouver/Montreal/Toronto out of the picture, that leaves precious few options.
There are other issues though
But the rigorous winters are one, also see my other comment in this thread
The caliber of engineer is just bad too. There's always the occasional superstar teams, but it's really, really hard to find a good spot unless you have connections...and even if you do, 2 years later as personnel shifts it goes to hell again.
I would have taken a pay -cut- to work in a different city. Fortunately, you'll never have to since the salaries are so bad.
But as you mentioned, unless you compare different jobs: the same opportunities simply don't exist up there. Making 300k, 400k or more? Its certainly not common in NYC or SF, but if you try hard enough, and shoot for it, its possible. Up north? Maybe as an exec, but as an individual contributor or tech leadish style position? I wouldn't know where to start looking. While here there's a lot of options. There's not for everyone by a long shot, but they are there.
Thus 8x or more becomes possible. And someone like a top Waterloo engineering graduate has an above average chance at those. But I don't know where they would without moving country.
You are right that there are many more top tier opportunities (although they do cost in Canada in small numbers) - but by definition nearly, this doesn't apply to most developers.
I'm a Canadian that moved to the US for work - this multiple sounds entirely plausible, in fact it sounds like a conservative estimate.
In major tech hubs the multiple is closer to 3-4x.
> "Much more realistic is a 30% bump"
This is not at all realistic - I know many Canadians working in the US as developers and all of them are making well in excess of 200% of their Canadian market rate.
You're characterizing Canadian tech salaries (in say, Vancouver or Toronto) as being moderately below US standards (~30%?), where in fact they are vastly below the standard in comparable markets (SFBA, Seattle, NYC, etc). The gap is already big for new grads, but it widens even further with experience. A dev with ~5+ years of experience can reasonably triple their salary moving south.
But if you were making 70-80k in Canada then hit the US and do 200k + RSUs + bonus, you're in a much different world...and it can just keep going up and up and up and up, while up north you will hit a wall much sooner.
Again, I'm not denying that vastly more of these opportunities exist in the US, particularly in a few locations. But that doesn't factor into the majority of tech jobs on either side of the border.
However, the Waterloo software engineering graduate who's making 150k+RSU+bonus is probably nailing a Principal engineer position at a famous american tech company in SF/SV/NYC/Boston and is absolutely going to nail big bucks. Thats some superstar material right there. The only places I've seen that approached those numbers in Canada were Canadian offices of Wall street banks. And having worked for those companies in the past, superstar engineers at Morgan/Goldman in NYC made me look poor.
And i'm far from poor.
But to suggest this is th norm for software jobs across both countries? The stats just don't support it.
3-4x is crazy. You make it sound like the US is crawling with tech jobs paying > 500k for mid-career jobs. It just not so.
During that time you have college grads in the states walking away if they don't get 100k as their first job in SF.
Now obviously if you take the hottest markets in Canada and compare them to mediocre markets in the US, the gap is much smaller, but that's usually not the move people are considering when this topic comes up.
Cost of home ownership at SF levels. Check. Salary to match? Nope.
I used to love Vancouver, I went to school there. I wanted to stay. But I doubt I'd move back except to retire.