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Comment by Kluny | Hacker News Reader

Canadian here. I get $65,000 USD from my remote American job. That's low enough that people on this forum snicker at me, and high enough that companies in the "tech town" that I live in physically wince when I tell them my salary expectation. I'd rather work locally, but what can I do?

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> people on this forum snicker at me

I hope you just mean that metaphorically, but if it's actually happening, please let us know so we can scold them. Putting others down that pettily is a breach of civility.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I've seen what the OP describes on HN many times in discussions of engineer salaries. It's usually not really a personal snickering as much as a stern warning that the person is "being taken advantage of" and they should leave immediately.

I see it all the time, but don't have any examples specifically bookmarked.

Exactly that, yeah.

I think he just didn't get the right words dang. No one is snickering at him for $65k. Probably the opposite. I, a relatively selfish person, get upset when I see a person being taken advantage of.

Sorry to nitpick, but I remembered from this previous comment that Kluny is a woman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16425273, and it feels bad to leave that without mention.

Wow good memory. After visiting your link, I remember that comment too.

$65,000 isn't peanuts. It all depends on the cost of living. Where I am, my cost of living adjustment for SF or NY is double my pay. Where I'll be renting, instead of owning a house. I live 5 minutes from the office, everywhere is easily accessible within 15 minutes, plenty of parking, the food and cocktail scene is huge here, and lots of outdoors, lakes etc.

And you're in Victoria? that's not a cheap place to live, especially if you're considering buying a home.

That companies think you're paid highly for your area is kind of this entire problem in a nutshell.

Exactly. I'm making more than my father did when he retired, yet I'll be stretched to afford the cheapest one-bedroom condo. Renting is cheaper, but there are no rentals available.

That's 80-85k CAD. The market for local jobs in Victoria is easily competitive with that.

There's opportunities to make six (Canadian) figures in Victoria if you have enough buzzwords on your resume to convince a recruiter or HR person you're "full-stack" (I hate the term but you have to play the game if you want to get hired).

I'm curious, though, what professions are being able to avoid all these high cost areas in Canada?

Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria - while not SF or NYC cost of living, they are still really expensive and their programming salaries appear to be 50% at best of comparable salaries in major US tech centers. Are other professions in Canada doing better? Are the only people who can afford the real estate people that just owned real estate previously and rich foreigners?

It's getting that way. We never had the housing price crash that the US had in the late 2000s. Things have continued to climb, and it's getting ridiculous.

I make a Google employee salary + RSUs. It is really good. I have no complaints about my compensation at all. I live on a 6 acre hobby farm, own two vehicles, am doing really well.

But I bought 6 years ago. I could not afford to buy this now.

I really don't understand that. There's so many places across the U.S. where that's very decent money. Anyone who says otherwise is living in some kind of bubble. Exceptions would be if you're living in cities.

According to https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS 82% of the US population lives in cities, and even over 50% of the world population now does, so I think your "exceptions" is a bit ironic at best.

No need to exclude most cities that aren't NYC or SF.

I too am in Victoria. I used to be a hiring manager and had people turn down 6 figure (CAD) offers due to receiving a better one. Although there is admittedly a huge gap between the local companies, and the satellite offices of American companies. Look at KIXEYE, Change.org, Workday, Abe Books (Amazon subsidiary). They typically pay up to 50% more than the local companies, but also typically have higher expectations around skills and availability.

Sendwithus, Ingrooves, Illumina.. oh wait.. scratch that last one :)

You're doing better than me and I'm at one of the largest communications/media companies in the country— and I'm at the head office in Toronto.

I was in Victoria last week. Arriving back here I immediately regretted coming back. :| Except for, of course, the need for the pay, and a few of my things. I love it out there.

I have the same problem. Even for US standards low paid remote work for the US from outside the US pays more than a senior software engineer in most Western countries. There are some nice career options that I might need to skip because the difference in pay is huge.

How much is the rent where you live? I hope it is within expectation of your salary. Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, have low salaries and high rents, which makes working there really hard.

A one bedroom goes for $1300, but the problem is finding one. The vacancy rate is below .05% right now.

This is really strange. It seems obvious that a landlord would be more willing to risk a bit more vacancy in order to get a higher rate. Is there something that prevents raising rates? If so, then that would also explain why there aren't more units being built.

Rents in Montreal are low.

Rent is low because augmentations are regulated, I pay 1350 for three bedrooms, buying is very expensive.

Shrug. That would be a nice paycut, but I'd take it in a heartbeat. I could move somewhere and live on less than 1000/month.

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