AI Startups in Montreal

Here, mostly in the French community, wealth isn't well perceived at all and is kind of a taboo. For some reason if you earn considerable money, say 100k which is twice the average salary in QC, people immediately assume you are doing something illegal or unethical. You can't drive a big car without getting the mean eye. Especially if you are one of those "replacing people with machines."

Moreover, the language barrier blocked the French companies to see what's going on outside of QC. This definitely keeps the salaries down and now every HR department in town think it offers competitive conditions.

You also have to know that the Engineering title is protected in Quebec and that you can't call yourself an engineer in any field without a diploma that is approved by the OIQ (http://oiq.qc.ca/Pages/accueil.aspx?lang=en).

It makes no difference in the long run but software engineers can expect around 30k more than non-engineers when getting out of school.

My friends and I make good money while studying Software Engineering full time. We are top of our class, but we make around ~80K CAD working as developers in a big Canadian bank and all have offers ranging from 120K to 180K CAD for when we graduate.

My point is that there are good opportunities in Montreal but you definitely have to shop a lot.

This is not a bad tradeoff -- consider 5x the rent and 4x the house price in SF, which is a less safe city with much worse suburb to city transit options, and only what, 2.5x the salary?

Partly true and bad: I think this bit is self-evident to this audience.

Partly false: the language wars have subsided in Montreal and rank and file tech workers can manage okay in English until they get around to learning French, even if the company has to deal with French by virtue of being here. The provincial politics are noise which can mostly be tuned out within the Montreal tech worker bubble.

Partly true and good: the friction that Quebec's language laws have created across the provincial border have allowed space for more "made in Quebec" companies that wouldn't have happened if Quebec let itself be treated as just another North American jurisdiction. It keeps the French/European cultural flair that makes it uniquely Quebec. Admittedly plenty of North American influence is still present.

Hello from another techie in Montreal, recently arrived from NYC. :)

Native anglophone; non-native fluent speaker of French.

You can totally make it work in Montreal with your small circle of anglo friends. But almost anyone I've known over the years who tried to make it work like that is either quite bitter, or has left once raising a family comes into the question.

For good reason, just as in Germany or Poland, unless you learn French, you will be excluded from public culture, especially as you get older, and that largely means a lot of the great things of Montreal get watered down.

Apart from the really short days in winter, the climate in Boston isn't too bad.

Opposite of the intended effect I guess.

Montreal is probably the only city in the province where you don't need to speak french though.