A new grad SDE makes 2x more in SF than Toronto after tax and COL
linkedin.com
linkedin.com
" I believe this is the key in retaining young Canadian tech talent in Canada. If an intern has a great experience at a Canadian tech company, they are more likely to sacrifice the additional compensation in US to remain in Canada. Sell them on the culture, not the money."
And then says:
" Tech CEOs in Canada often complain about the brain drain issue, but only a few companies like Shopify and Wealthsimple are actually putting money where their mouth is."
Really, if you wanna "Sell" them on something, it should be the money, sure I'd go for culture if we are talking 10-15% salary difference, but if it's 50%, I'll find something that pays 50% more with a decent culture.
Or have a significant other that can't get a visa.
Sell them on culture, but the compensation still needs to be not insulting.
I think if you dig around, you will find that US tech companies are far better funded and thus working on things that generate more upside - for everyone.
Another thing to consider is that there is a massive bull market going on. And tech is at the frothy end of it. Those RSUs are great when stock is valuable and companies are flush. When the market tanks, they won’t be so hot anymore.
Vancouver is interesting because it's also where a lot of american firms set shops in order to house employees that can't qualify for a US visa.
I see the same effect here in Europe, companies have to run more "tightly" and carefully because money is not easy to come, not many will have a deep line of credit if their companies' life depend on money, getting new rounds of investment is expensive so you have to do with the money you have now and the little revenue you are getting.
All this being said, I think it’s even more significant that tech investment and talent is concentrated on the Bay Area, and to a more corporate extent on Seattle with Amazon and Microsoft.
Also, Canadian companies and employees whine too much. My attitude is: if you think you’d be better off in the US, it’s easy to just move there. You will earn more, and your company will be exposed to more funding AND much hotter competition for talent. So you’d better have a really amazing idea.
On the other hand, Canadians don't celebrate failure (think Trump or someone else who has multiple bankruptcies taking down companies and negatively affecting the workers) anywhere near as much as we Americans seem to.
Canadians are simply risk-adverse, or are more comfortable with oil and gas or basic financial services.
But you also said the companies just didn't do as well as the US companies. Maybe with better pay you could attract better people to help fix that.
I mean you're the one who said that there was a problem - the companies don't make enough money. That's why'd you want to pay more.
The work culture is actually miles ahead in the United States too. A lot of it has to do with the respect that comes with a good salary. You are far more likely to treat an employee worth 120k as less expandable than someone worth 60k.
Does that mean that if I was willing to a) work for someone and b) move to SV that I would be making 300-400k per year? Maybe (I'm a US citizen and Canadian permanent resident so I have that option).
I guess my issue is less of one comparing west coat development compensation to Ontario compensation and say that all over North America there is an issue of stagnant wages for everyone except the top financial/business minds and the above average tech workers. Canada lags a little behind SV in employee equity and feels like it still has a bit of a British class thing going where there is the elite (capital) and the commoners (labour). Except that it's purely financial (mostly) these days. Nowhere near as bad as, say, the Bahamas.
I see a lot of comments here that I agree with (moderate talent commanding wages that maybe they aren't really worth) but at the senior end, yea, it feels a little different in Canada - if you don't go in to management (I did, and hated it) you're likely to be capped (in most industries) at about $120k. That seems a little ridiculous in a time of record breaking corporate profits and startup valuations.
All that said, I spent a lot of time early in my career in Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc.. and while I appreciate a lot of things about Nor Cal there is no way I would move there. Heck, it's unlikely I would ever move back to the US. Canada is simply more in line with my values.
I meant to type "Bermuda" not "Bahamas"
Yeah yeah, I understand that it eventually boils down to supply and demand of talent, but just saying...
There are few Canadian companies that are remoting and generally they cap out at 70K. There are higher paying remoting jobs in Canada but to get them you have to do in-person networking to secure them.
I'm from Thunder Bay originally and honestly would prefer to live someone cheap but I'm forced back into the GTA because people want to have their head over your shoulder.
The only way to get about the 70K cap was to run my own firm, which brought in lots of money but was quite the chore to keep stable.
The fact that couldn't even qualify for a US visa was a big red flag in terms of qualification.
[1] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/41687/what-is-b...
* The government is starting to catch on and might put an end to paying out dividends to non-working family members.
As a physician, it's a 15-20% pay cut for me :(
Also, my experience is that the expenses don't line up either. I could be wrong but having moved from Toronto to Chicago and now the SF Bay area, other than rent in SF area, living in Canada is often more expensive, specifically: gas, food, travel (partly due to weak CAD and expensive flights), not adjusting for the currency since you are paid in CAD and also paid less.
The situation is made worse with a out of control immigration, with 10x the number of migrants as compared to the United States, that all pretty much target urban areas in BC and Toronto. From what he told me, for IT folks it's mostly guys that wouldn't be good enough for a work visa here in the US.
This, with all the best university grads getting poached by tech companies here in the valley creates a big surplus of average/low skilled tech workers. I mean, it's fine. It's just that these guys aren't playing in the 120-200k range for top dev talent, more like in the 50k range for average workers.
This, very much. You have around 100-120 responses, and for many groups (gender, company) you had <20 people responding. You really can't draw any conclusions from this, especially because a lot of the "results" differed by very little.
Not that Toronto real estate is cheap either. I think Google Waterloo is a great value: high CAD salary but low real estate prices (around half of Toronto).
The optimal play (if you don't want to permanently live in the US) is to go to SF, continue living like a student and sock away your cash while building your reputation, then move back to Canada and work remote with a grandfathered USD salary.
Um, uh… So how do they compare if we assume similar living situation in both? (And yes, I realise that's still a massively subjective question, given questions of neighbourhood, etc., and rent variation within them.)
Also I'll note that you can bump up the SF numbers by 1K/mo for rent (which puts you well into the can easily afford a 1BR apartment range) and still be ahead on savings compared to the canadian salaries.
1. His Excel sheet shows cost of living with 2-3 roommates, across many different cities, including Toronto
2. The frat parties you attended must have really sucked if they were held in 3-bedroom apartments