Nice promo piece, anyone have anecdata about experience living in Montreal and working in tech there? I've mostly heard about their electronic gaming scene. Why aren't more people going to there rather than Vancouver or Toronto?
The Quebecois will disagree with me on this, but I don't think you even need to speak French if you're working in tech - you might just have a smaller friend circle of Anglos.
Taxes however are crazy high and salaries are low compared to cities like Vancouver or Toronto.
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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.
1. You need to speak French
2. Winter is brutal (forecast for next 10 days, and it's only October: https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/CAXX0301:1:CA)
I don't know for sure either way - I only arrived at the end of February, and last winter was unusually intense and long in both Montreal and the northeast US where I was just before.
Still, if it is just 4 months, that's pretty close to canonical season length!
They offer lots of coping mechanisms too like the underground city in the downtown core and good home heating, plus lots of outdoor and indoor activities to make the winter enjoyable.
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.
The main language is French and it causes harm to the expansion of many businesses.
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.
Completely true and good: There is no price to be placed on something that core to cultural heritage i.e. language, that can be decided upon by someone who doesn't or hasn't historically participated in it.