Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay
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As a new grad myself, I am in this situation where I get offers of >120k USD if I move to SV with a growth potential (both in technical and financial terms) far better than what I can get here. In Quebec (where I live), I saw most of my peers stay around and accept salaries ranging from 65k CAD to 80k CAD (50k-61k USD). From what I know, an average senior can expect 120-130k CAD in Montreal. The only way to make more is by being a consultant, which is why you see a lot of them around here (for better or worse). I would feel a bit guilty to move to the US right now considering I got basically a free education and I do want to contribute back to society.
Vancouver’s tech scene is exploding, with a number of top tier tech companies being based here (like Clio) and majors setting up dev offices (Shopify, Amazon, Microsoft).
> What I see is some large firms taking advantage of a low CAD while most tech companies are still at low/zero growth and offer very mediocre salaries.
Absolutely. You could throw around $120-150k yearly rates in CAD and you'd have applications from all over the country. Currently CAD-USD is around .77 so they're looking at a 25% discount.
Vancouver, however, has seen a crazy high influx of foreign capital -- way more $$$ coming from China than from a $71 million dole via Investment Firm -- and the price of housing in Vancouver is absurd.
For the HN crowd, imagine San Fran housing prices with East Oregon salaries. A deeper dive: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-yet-again-most-expensive-pla...
I've been to Vancouver a lot, it's a great place to be, but in terms of climate, culture, and activities you can get mostly the same in Seattle. If Seattle is too expensive work remote or commute from Mt. Vernon or Bellingham.
Clio raised $330 million last year.
/sarcasm on
With 26 years in software development, low level linux (kernel "stuff") and low level windows (kernel "stuff" again), with work including from analyzing malware to writting DRM that was left unbroken for 3 years, to high level software, system administration on various unixes and unix like beasts, including low level networking, fluent in c, c++, asm x86/64, go and some "stuff" I am not proud off (c#, java, python, js, php), expirience in management, team leadership, working for bluechips, US three letter agencies and army (as a part of my previous jobs), annoyingly proficient in security (..., there is more, but who cares) I earn 24k netto euros a year and consider myself lucky, due to a fact that I cant move to another country based on broken marriage and my wish to still parent my kid every second week. Oh, you have 120k salery? I wouldnt complain if I were you.
/sarcasm off
Just my 5 cents, Instead of counting the money, concentrate on what makes you happy. You will pass better on long term. At the end there is not much you can take into grave. And money certanly doesnt make it softer.
> and some "stuff" I am not proud off (c#, java, python, js, php)
I would venture that maybe you should be less proud of the first one and less ashamed of the second one.
He's proud he invented a lock nobody could pick. Whether that lock create inconveniences to some people is another thing but that's not his fault.
People aren't being paid $200k-$2M / year for reasons of charity. They get paid that much because their contribution to the company is higher than that.
Bottom line, knowlidge is not worth a penny, it doesnt matter. Only how good you are to selling yourself and if there is no company preparing to offer you a higher sallary - relocate somewhere else. Or decide not to move and be satisfied with what you have. Like I decided my kid is more important than Tesla and bunch of expansive gadgets (while I do have long term ENTP/INTP relationship with a former photomodel that has IQ higher that anyone that was hitting on her though ;) ). And I am happy. More than most people running for money.
I will repeat it once again. Go for whatever makes you happy. Ignore the money, as a developer you will survive. Dont put money as your goal as you will be miserable at the end.
Everybody is being taken advantage of if you think about it, especially if you're a salaried employee.
Hell, if you ask Googlers earning $600k they'll think they're being taken advantage of. If you ask CEOs of F500 companies they'll also think they're being take advantage of. If you ask Multi-Billionaires with offshore accounts in tax havens to pay their fair share of taxes, they'll also think they're bein taken advantage of.
If you let this way of thinking drive your life, you'll end up very miserable.
I disagree.
If you think every employer is going to take advantage of you, then you should start a business and become self-employed.
I'm very happy working where I do. I'm well paid and genuinely like the people I work with. I've been here for 20 years now.
If anything the US should be directly helping Canada to boom in tech. Enlarge the regional blackhole, suck up all the world's talent. They're our largest export market, the richer they get, the more people they have, the more US exports they are likely to buy (and vice versa). Canada's tech talent will occasionally also go south and start companies in the US. Canadian investors can fund US start-ups from their successes. US investors can back Canadian start-ups and public companies. The more the merrier.
I am in a Canadian software engineering program right now, and it is a goal of many people here.
Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/article-...
There are so many cities here with better quality of life and lower cost of living.
Come out far ahead how?
I'm already pulling close to 6 figures, and I expect to reach $120-130k in a relatively short time period. Do I -need- to move to SV and live in much shittier conditions and have an insane cost of living just to earn some more money? ... I feel that remote work makes this an outdated concept (my company is fully distributed).
I'm almost 24 and if I continue to manage my finances correctly, I should have my own spacious home by 25. I'm in South Carolina, but there are plenty of other reasonable places in the US. The money that I don't have to spend on high cost of living goes straight to my savings. I get that my situation is atypical, but it's absolutely possible to have a great life and earn great money while not living in SV. If I ever feel like I need to earn more money, there's nothing stopping me from creating my own startup, etc.
I guess I'll never have the "prestige" of working in SV, but I seem to do just fine by going to conferences and networking.
If your goal is a comfortable life and financial stability, then you are completely right. If you want to become a millionaire or more, then you’ll have a better shot SV. If you are really focused on a specific technical topic, then SV, if you are a generalist and enjoy your work but don’t want to live it, then SC is fine.
That money can offset cost of living quiet easily.
Check out levels.fyi. Moving to the Bay Area to work at a random startup makes little sense, but moving to one of the BigCos can be very financially rewarding.
> I'm almost 24 and if I continue to manage my finances correctly, I should have my own spacious home by 25
Check out this comment someone made complaining how high the CoL is in the Bay Area, even for someone making $300k. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22228756 Their analysis is flawed and overstates expenses, but even then this hypothetical tech employee saves > $110k/year (including a 401k and match). That's enough to put a down payment on a house in SC every year. If you're investing minded, you could own an apartment building in about 10 years and never have to worry about money again.
If I weren't working remotely, this would be more compelling I think.
I think the bigger issue for many people is probably cultural. I’ve loved my time in SF and NYC because I love cities, am fairly liberal-minded, don’t mind small living space, and don’t really care about living near extended family. Working remotely from a sprawling home in a small town near family is the opposite of what I want for my life. YMMV!
My point on “coming out far ahead” is limited to finances. Yes, you can buy a house in SC and be making $100k once you hit 2-3 years of experience. That’s a great outcome, full stop. Nothing wrong with it.
But someone with your equivalent experience working at a big tech company in SV is already making 2-3x as much as you. Cost of living increase eats up some of that, but not even close to all of it. Especially if they live with a roommate or two and avoid buying a new Tesla, they can save $50-100k per year fairly easily.
And the difference becomes even more stark in another 5-7 years. You’ll be making $150k in SC but the dev in SV will be making $400k - 600k. They’ll also have 100x as many job options should they desire a change or get laid off, and they’ll have a much easier time raising funds and making key hires if they want to start their own company. Or becoming a key hire at a friend’s company. Or investing in a friend’s company. Etc, etc.
Again, there are genuine downsides to living in SV, and you may have made the right choice for you, but I find a lot of devs outside of SV have a really inaccurate view of just what they’re giving up, and that skews their analysis.
Cost of living is only relevant compared to the salary you make and SV can pay very well. Quality of life wise most of the SV is a giant suburb so if you like suburbs it's about the same as anywhere else.
I've never heard US and Canada mentioned as competition in anything - let alone in tech. Geographically, demographically, technologically and economically, Canada is in no position to compete with the US.
> The US benefits enormously from having a wealthy, vibrant Canada, including in its tech sector.
Enormously? Canada pretty much sells us their resources and some canadian manufactured US cars. We account for 76% of all canada's trade, canada represents a much smaller portion of our overall trade. One party benefits a lot more than the other party.
> We're permanent allies, liberal democracies and share a very large border as well as $600 billion in goods trade.
No such thing as permanent allies. Just like there is no such thing as permanent government since canada existed mostly as a nonvoting subject of a monarchy.
> They're our largest export market
And also one we seem to have a neverending trade deficit with.
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/t...
> If anything the US should be directly helping Canada to boom in tech.
Or we could help arkansas, idaho, pennsylvannia and a countless other states "boom in tech". Shouldn't Canada be the ones helping themselves? Shouldn't the US be helping ourselves?
> The more the merrier.
Sounds like a utopian dream.
Canada is (often) to tech what Mexico is to cars.
Mexican 'assembly' of cars is fine and good, but they don't exactly move up the value chain from there.
Canada produces a lot of decent tech people, who will work for 2/3 the wages, unfortunately, this doesn't map to a successful entrepreneurial climate. Now, that's a hard thing to contemplate, as 'nobody' can really compete with SV at their own game, but it's disingenuous in the least to farm out labor and compare that activity with those doing much of the higher-level work, and most importantly: controlling the profits.
Maybe the Mexico analogy goes a little bit too far, as there are tech startups and a few decent companies in Toronto, by and large, but they have serious trouble scaling into anything. To be fair, it's not like most US cities are any better. In fact, aside from the weather and lack of charm, Toronto is a 'better all-around city' than most American cities.
But there's a serious lack of exceptionalism, and far too many of Toronto's best move on to the US, London, or elsewhere.
This kind of 'pathetic nationalism' is why loathe the CBC. It's as though they are utterly unaware of the extent to which they extoll mediocrity.
Canadians are well educated, get along pretty well, and the 'average person' in Canada in many ways lives better than the average American, at very least there's a lot less calamity, fraud, there's full healthcare which isn't great but it's mostly good.
But - on the issue of talent and exceptionalism, it's a disaster. We are near the bottom of the OECD it talent and R&D expenditures. Canada sends China 'raw materials' and they send us back finished goods: this is the opposite of 'first world/developing world' trading norm.
We should not be hailing mediocrity as a victory. It's nice to have jobs, but there is no Valley of the North.
Actually Canada products a lot of decent tech people, most of which go south the US. The ones that stay, or the ones that immigrate here, mostly work for 2/3rd (or less) of the wages.
But yes, Canadian economy is mostly "rip and ship"; and that seems to apply to talent education as well.
If people immigrate to canada instead of the us to work in tech, I would expect there to be more companies founded here eventually. Further, fewer caandians will go to the us if hiring rises. I can only imagine it will have upwards pressure on wages too, which will eventually help create a pool of people with some capital for angel investing.
I am against the narrative of this as equivalent to, or comparable to the Silicon Valley.
Of course, it is 'good for Toronto' in many ways, there's little doubt.
The Ontario government, during negotiations with Cisco for a juicy corporate subsidy, indicated that salaries are 'very competitive' and that they'd do 'anything to keep it that way'. Literally stating that he wanted to keep us 'poorer' to guarantee the jobs. (Sorry I can't find the reference).
From a certain perspective, it's understandable: Ontario's competitive advantage is 'a lot of decent tech workers with lower pay' so it makes sense to back that, after all, it's what brings the jobs.
But the very thing that provides a nice economic baseline of wealth (compared to most other countries), also severely limits our potential to be competitive in most areas. Basically, a gilded cage.
The problem with Canada's approach to the US and globalism in this manner is that it systematically reduces the ability of Canadian businesses to be competitive at higher levels.
A commenter noted 'that it brings tech jobs and they might go on to make startups' - which is a good point. But this won't likely be the case, paradoxically, the opposite.
Essentially, NAFTA/USMCA makes Canada an economic suburb: nice place, with basic prosperity, but lacking in exceptionalism and the ability to form groups that bring in real profits, excess surpluses, control, power & influence.
It seems like a paradox - shouldn't free trade, migration etc. make Canada more diverse and competitive? But it's not: Since NAFTA and 'globalization' and 'all of these jobs' ... Canada's expenditures on R&D has actually decreased. Have a look [1].
This in particular, is a disaster. Very important to note that public spending on R&D is not that low (i.e. Canada does good research at University level). And it's not so much that Canadian tech companies spend less on R&D' but it's that Canada produces less and less of the companies that naturally spend on R&D i.e. drugs, medical equipment, tech, etc..
Not only that, in the last 30 years, industrial diversity has actually been shrinking! Have a look [2] Canada isn't even in the top group anymore. Not only this, the sophistication of exports has been going down.
So therein lies the paradox: intelligent people keep saying 'these jobs are great, they'll help us move up the ladder', but it's not the case. NAFTA, large scale migration, other artifacts of globalization and Canada's peculiar history have meant that we get to go to a very 'good spot on the ladder' but actually going higher than that gets even harder.
The Canadian economy is increasingly dependent on Natural Resources and Auto Manufacture for export, and internally, it's driven by 'core businesses' like Finance & Insurance (especially mortgages), construction (again housing) and all of the other things that make a civic community work.
Basically, Canada is becoming a 'very well run civic entity' with less and less R&D spending, less economic complexity, less exceptionalism, fewer knowledge-based exports, and ever greater consumption of foreign products and service and it's the natural result of plain vanilla economic liberal policies, applied without really much thought to the special context of the country. Due to Canada's unique history and lack of its own institutional foundations, it means something different for us than say, Sweden. Almost all of Canadian media consumption is American. The vast majority of the products and services we consume are designed and produced elsewhere, usually in the US.
In order to 'get better' I think we might need a new approach, but I don't think that's what Canadians want - I think even popularity, most Canadians just want 'decent jobs, safety, their Toyota and Netflix'. And so a new Google office is perfect for that.
[1] https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/april-2018/will-can...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_...
This was also a point made during the amazon pitch - cheap labour.
There is a lack of investment capital available to companies based in Canada. Programs like IRAP and SR&ED don't help in any meaningful way.
Canada is a great country, but we've been underperforming for a while now and we should be a lot more concerned about that.
I think IRAP and SRED are okay, they just led to government picking winners (IRAP) and an awful ecosystem of vendors and abuse (SRED).
I’m of the opinion that Canada should take that money and do what Israel did with Yozma. Match the creation of VC funds with government capital and generous exit terms (e.g. government matches with 50% capital, is totally silent partner and can be bought out at any time with a 30% premium). I bet big VCs would jump at the opportunity and everyone would win (Israel actually saw a return in the end).
As in total aggregate, I agree. On a per-capita basis, no. Some countries have a very healthy tech sector without being as large as in the US. Canada does not not need to have FAANG, just an F is enough.
An 'F' generally requires a critical mass of competitive expertise in certain areas, along with the 'F' (and smaller entities) to commercialize it. Basically an 'industrial hub'.
Sweden, Switzerland have F-like companies, but also the surrounding competitive base (and often direct participation of government) to support them.
Switzerland is very competitive in drugs, among many other things.
Interesting example: Sweden makes Fighter Jets (Grippon), maybe the most sophisticated of all product categories.
Making 'Fighter Jets' requires a highly specialized industrial base, and the investment/cooperation of government: Jet sales are done as much through the diplomatic corps as anything else. Policy is shaped around it.
But how did Sweden get there? Well, because they're a sovereign nation and have fought several wars with Russia, 'everyone serves' as part of their community requirements. In the 1960's tiny Sweden had one of the largest air forces in the world! So, out of this (and other developments), they have the ability to make advanced fighters.
So it's a panacea of cultural elements and underpinning institutions that enable exceptional entities.
The problem with what I have just described, is that it 'does not compute' in the American, neoliberal model. In America, entrepreneurs 'raise money' and 'make companies' and 'many fail, but some win'. This kind of neoliberal model is heralded as the 'true free-market solution', but in reality, it disproportionately favours very large countries.
Smaller nations have to play a different game.
The Canadian elite has mostly bought into the neoliberal model, even most 'progressives'. So Canada s a small country, caught up in playing from the American ideological playbook.
I’m not sure why you’re upset with the CBC over this, we’ve been a branch plant economy since the 1960s. A lot of this has to do with Canadian temperament and mindset, which isn’t particularly entrepreneurial due a dearth of leadership from its investor class.
There have been many tech darlings out of Canada over the years (top of my head - Shopify, Hootsuite, Flickr, Matrox, ATI, BioWare, Eidos, iStockPhoto, Nortel, Corel, BNR, Cognos, Delrina, Hummingbird, Newbridge, Jetform, RIM/Blackberry, OpenText, Mitel, Newbridge networks, QNX, Sierra Wireless, SMART technologies, Redknee, PointClickCare, Solace) but often a reasonable exit lies with pools of capital outside of the country such as IPOing in the US capital markets.
Which gets to my confusion over your complaint. The problem with Canada over the last 50+ Years is that its capital holders are extremely risk averse and largely old money. That’s changing with recent funds, but it takes time for that to lead to improved VC and other funding. But we see this problem in every industry. A major chunk of Canada’s Oil and Gas interests for example are owned by foreigners. I’m not sure what your suggested approach is — Government subsidized entrepreneurship? We already have that to some degree.
Even in the USA we are increasingly seeing grads taking the FAANG paycheque instead of doing a startup. The stress and market barriers are too high to make it worthwhile relative to the alternative of making $150k at age 22.
I’m not sure why you’re upset with the CBC over this
The reason this is so infuriating is the congratulatory rhetoric rings hollow for many Canadians with US work experience who realize how much better it is, in so many (but not all) ways, to be a tech worker in the US vs. in Canada.
To produce articles with the tone of the OP, you would need to be either myopic or disingenuous.
This is especially so in the context of a company like Google. If you're a Canadian engineer who can get a job at Google, your take-home pay after housing will be dramatically higher in the US than in Canada (if you don't like the lifestyle sacrifices that requires in the Bay Area or NYC, you can do better in umpteen smaller cities). All the while you will have access to better health care, lower wait times, and easy immigration status (TN).
we’ve been a branch plant economy since the 1960s. A lot of
this has to do with Canadian temperament and mindset, which
isn’t particularly entrepreneurial due a dearth of
leadership from its investor class.
I certainly encourage young Canadian tech workers to move to the US for a while (as I did) to make some money and see what it’s like.
However, many of us eventually moved back. One of the better deals is to work remotely for US tech while in Canada, to get some of the comp benefits while living in a much better overall country (in terms of many factors - happiness, quality of life, life expectancy, inclusiveness, etc). This will be subjective of course. But I don’t think it’s disingenuous or myopic to be happy that these tech giants are growing in Canada. It keeps people here. Being here makes a difference.
Wherever you want to draw the line - R&D investment, industrial complexity, and product sophistication have been going down for the last 30 years and the major turning point was NAFTA, large scale migration, and the more globally oriented policies. Most it seemed pretty rational at the time (much of it still does) but now that we see the results, it's time to take a more nuanced approach.
Excited, because now that I've joined one of these SV companies recently expanding their presence Canada, my yearly TC is now an integer multiple of what I was making at a local small company.
But I'm also concerned, because the majority of Canadian companies absolutely cannot compete. At all. My fear is all the biggest talent will get sucked into US-based companies. Super hypocritical of me, I know.
Canada needs so many more Shopifys.
The scene around might grow and might not. Wannabe Googlers might come on spec and work for a different employer if Google doesn’t work out. Xooglers will be emerge eventually, but if they’re not making googly money, it’s hard to see them staying to work in tech.
Currently remote for a US firm, doing well by local standards. I desperately wish there were more competitive local options, esp. in places that are NOT Toronto or Vancouver. In the US you can go to Austin, Denver, Seattle, the Washington DC area, NYC, SF, even Raleigh-Durham for tech jobs... but in Canada it's just YYZ and YVN.
There may be a few people here for visa reasons (I know one or two), but that's now a very small portion.
If you're in a non-primary market in the U.S. (non NYC/SF/Boston), my experience has been that you can hire comparable or better talent in Canadian cities for less the local U.S. median salary, especially in talent-starved markets within the U.S. It's an open secret that many Americans are somehow unaware of.
https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2019/0304/Go-north-young-g...
(This being points-based skilled immigration)
So while there certainly is a skilled worker immigration path, if you are accepted by the board as a refugee, you will be met with help and kindness. And even while waiting, we do not separate kids from you and put them in cages. And we accept the most refugees in the world: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48696974
How is that different than the U.S.? Are refugees not met with help and kindness in America?
> And even while waiting, we do not separate kids from you and put them in cages
While I do not agree with this tactic, I also think that this paints an unfair picture, since Canada has never experienced immigration issues to the degree that the U.S. has. Maybe the U.S. should do what Mexico did and let caravans of migrants show up at the border in Vancouver?
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48696974 > And we accept the most refugees in the world
"According to the US-based Pew Research Center, which looked the the UNHCR data, 2018 was the first time the US did not lead the world in refugee resettlement since 1980."
I guess congratulations? I don't necessarily view "accepting the most refugees" as a moral calculation, nor something that should be a competition. But if you want to keep score I guess the U.S. is now 28-1 since 1980. Go America!
"The US is the world's major recipient of new asylum applications, registering 254,300 applications in 2018.
Canada was ninth on the list of new asylum claims with 55,400 registered in 2018, behind the US, Peru, Germany, France, Turkey, Brazil, Greece and Spain."
Jeez only 9th? Worse than Peru?
"An influx of asylum seekers crossing at the US-Canada border has become a political issue after approximately 40,000 people "irregularly" crossed into Canada between 2017 and 2018."
Why is this an issue for Canadians?
" Canada currently is struggling with a backlog of almost 74,000 asylum claims with applicants waiting almost two years for a hearing."
Other relevant facts from your article.
But hey, the U.S. is bad because that's what the news says.
The US Asylum backlog jumped to 340,000 - up 10x since 2014. Certainly some of that is due to heightened applications, but a lot is due to antiquated systems in USCIS and political changes.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/u-s-claims-reducing-re...
I’d also note in the Syrian refugee crisis, that Canada punched high above its weight in resettlement, far beyond the numbers the USA accepted, for a country 10x smaller.
With global warming and conflict on the rise, we are about to see over a billion people displaced over the next 50 years. In prior eras, the US would have led global efforts to manage this in a structured, humane way. But lately the US has preferred dismantling the global order and institutions it created after WW2.
> we are about to see over a billion people displaced over the next 50 years
Yes. And this is worrisome because stable countries won't be able to "let them all in" (sorry not sure the best way to put that). Long-term it's going to be more sensible to stabilize unstable countries.
A few years ago, it took me fifteen minutes to renew a Work Permit at the border. Last year, it was an intentionally unpleasant all-day affair. The online system is horrifically backlogged, far beyond the 100 or so days it says on the website.
Salaries are about to go up way more for the average employee. Simultaneously, any companies that were making money on labor price arbitrage are about to have a real tough time; Good riddance.
I was flat out told there are no such jobs in Canada two years back. Has that changed?
Can guarantee Senior Software Engineers don't make >600K in SF.
What really happens though is RSU appreciation. GOOG has more than doubled in the past 4 years. You are awarded X dollars of stock on hire and every annual review period, but that is converted into shares awarded every Y months. If you achieved a 1:1 salary:RSU vesting ratio, today that would probably be 1:2, a 50 percent pay raise.
(When comparing keep in mind Netflix hire only at senior software engineer level and above and have a single level title so staff/principal levels are collapsed to senior just with higher salaries.)
https://www.levels.fyi/# (L6 at Google, for instance.)
I know engineers in Canada who are making similar amounts. There's not a lot but it's not nonexistent.
At google a Staff engineer is a title notably higher than senior swe, and many talented people will not reach this title or pay grade.
"Senior Software Engineer" is a role you can reach in 3-8 years of experience.
"Staff" is a whole different ordeal, a role many never reach. And even then compensation is closer to 450K; you might find some around 600K but those are outliers (whereas OP made it sound that >600K is something common)
If you can grow, you'll grow pretty much everywhere
I know the 600k sound tempting but it's not like it doesn't have any strings attached.
Getting paid, let's say 200k USD in Canada, might get you closer to owning your home than the 600k in SF
I left Toronto immediately after my Master's, but have multiple extremely talented friends who feel they've topped out at well under half that.
Lol. Maybe a similar culture to some parts of California or Washington, and that is a stretch, but Vancouver is very very different than "the United States". Live in both for a while and all the little difference (the guns, health care, government, police, civil-military relations, the environment, land use, education etc) add up to markedly different approaches to life.
I have lived in Alberta for over ten years, and though culturally distinct from the rest of Canada (as is every other province I've spent time in) Alberta's brand of rugged individualist / conservatism is still very Canadian.
And though we may look very different to the urbanites of GVRD (Vancouver and surrounding) and the GTA (Toronto and surrounding), you'll find many more similarities between us and those living in rural Canada with resource-based economies, like the people living in B.C.'s forestry-dependent areas, the northern prairies or NorthWest Ontario. The difference for us is that we have very vocal, oil-industry-controlled politicians and a population that is immediately suspicious of any time an easterner tries to tell us what to do.
Sometimes the easiest way to see our distinctiveness is by contrast - immediately evident when crossing over to even the closest border states.
I love Montana and its people, but boy do you know you're not in Canada anymore - roadways lined with advertisements; cops everywhere you look; huge rich/poor divides; razor wire, visible drug problems and ghettos in even the smallest cities; and a love of all things military.
All that to say, there's far more to being Albertan than oil, guns and god, and those three things don't make us a 'murican.
Vancouver is especially different from the rest of canada than most canadian cities. Its like using Portland to characterize the entirety of America.
San Diego was far more different than Austin, TX, and considerably different than Ithaca, NY.
I'm still legally a WA resident, and having done a lot of time around Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, and Vancouver, I can tell you there are a lot of similarities. Seattle doesn't have the Aberdeen Mall, but in terms of attitude there isn't anything you can't find in Seattle.
Once you get out of the city, guns, religion, and skepticism of the urbanites is just as common as in the US -- standard Urban-Rural divide. Hell, even the "fly-over" provinces are conservative, just like in the US.
Also: I'd quite like to see what the distribution of carreer-levels is, when comparing Silicon Valley to non-Silicon Valley locations for these companies. I'd be willing to bet that non-Silicon Valley locations have predominantly more junior people, and that certain promotions are harder to get and will come with the necessity to move to the valley.
"This information is most likely buried in Google’s annual report — the last one I could dig up is their 2015 fiscal year end report. According to the paper published by Google Inc and Alphabet Inc, there are 61,814 full-time employees with 23,336 in research and development."
Bear in mind R&D isn't pure developers. It also includes QA and project/program management roles.
I'm also not saying that there's anything wrong with these companies expanding their presences outside the valley. (I would very much welcome it), only that we're not seeing enough of it right now to contradict the notion that these companies are still very much centralized. Maybe real estate prices and competition for tech talent will eventually force them to properly decentralize. But I could also see a scenario where those companies could put their might into play to overcome that resistance-level and allow them to continue growing while remaining centralized. It's simply too early to tell which way this thing is playing out.
What are you basing this on, and what would be enough ?
4.3%, if indeed happens that way, would be a substantial portion. They already have significant presence in NYC, Seattle/Kirkland, London, Zurich, LA, Hyderabad, Dublin, Tokyo, Austin, etc. A few thousand here and a few thousand there add up quickly.
EDIT: Added a few more that I remembered.
As a tech worker in Atlanta, I find that quite the opposite is true. People tend to career-(s)hop out in the valley and don't stay at the same company for long.
In Atlanta people tend to stay with the same company for years and grow their role and influence. As such, the SF headquarters tends to put its most important pieces in its remote offices.
I also think SF sees a lot of products spun up as promotion vehicles, whereas remote offices tend to think long term with long time horizons.
There are advantages to being at headquarters but it's not practical to move everyone to the SF Bay Area.
This doesn't sound right TBH.
Most junior people are actually in HQ, because HQ has head counts and can offer to train them, while satellite office won't have so many HCs and usually there to snatch up experienced developers.
As to promotions to higher level, yes HQ are definitely better, but that is only because it is HQ, so critical decision is made there naturally.
The traditional wisdom is that you should work from HQ to maximize your career advancement, but I think many people are weighing this against the untenable housing situation and realizing it's not worth it.
Also, San Francisco was considered a fun alternative to living in Cupertino or Menlo Park or Mountain View, but the city just keeps going further downhill. Junior employees likely have a higher tolerance than senior employees for the quality-of-life issues you deal with in San Francisco.
Facebook, Google, and Apple all have large or rapidly growing presences in Seattle. It does the real estate market and traffic no good, but it is what it is.
No they aren't, Mountain View much bigger than all of those combined.
Altogether Google employs 4500 in the Seattle area, and that number will increase substantially when south lake union comes online. And of course, Google will just be a small presence compared to the other craziness in South Lake Union (Amazon being the biggest, but also Apple and Facebook having large presences).
Now, 4500 in Seattle, 4000 in Zurich, 3,500 in London, 7,000 in NYC...that easily approaches the 23,000 in Mountain View.
SF to Mountain View is 38.7 miles.
They bought Infineon (through intels purchase of Infineons mobile chip assets years ago)
Everything in the world is cheap compared to the Valley, that any comparison is pretty much a meme at this point.
You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that Munich real estate is cheap even when you account for local salaries.
Munich is the embodiment of the Bay Area in Germany when accounting for living costs, except without the high paying jobs. I have multiple friends who moved there to work in engineering after graduating and they're starting to move elsewhere once they enter their 30s because they got tired of living in shared apartments(WGs) and realized they could never afford to buy anything worthy of having a family unless you're lucky enough to get into an executive position at a top company since ICs there aren't valued as much as they are in the valley so their salaries stay low and job hopping for better pay is frowned upon.
Germany is indeed a country of engineers, but poorly paid ones.
In the large, European salaries for technical professionals are just way worse than American equivalents.
In my various data sources tracking job advertising, Munich has been and continues to be where almost all of the interesting jobs are based in Bavaria, and I'm not seeing falling real estate prices at all.
> Munich is the embodiment of the Bay Area in Germany
I'd argue that in many ways it is worse than the Bay Area in the sense that the pay-differential, though in existence, is not nearly as pronounced. Stack Overflow keeps pestering me with emails about jobs that it has classified as "high pay jobs" for Munich. The salary beneath those job ads is usually something like €80k/year before taxes (which are extremely high in Germany). This must seem like a steal to a company like Apple. And this is in a city that has one of the best technical universities on the planet, an extremely vibrant engineering scene, and offers a better quality of life than the Bay Area at lower prices to any senior Apple executive who might want/need to move there from the Bay Area. -- My initial statement holds in that this is a "special opportunity" for Apple, that must be worth capturing for them.
Fells like a place with Bay Area prices but without the pay.
I've found that German-based companies are perfectly willing to pay 2x - 3x for an onsite freelancer than they would pay for an onsite employee, but they just don't do remote.
Since U.S.-based remote-only companies don't pay nearly as well as U.S.-based companies doing onsite - in my experience[!] -, this means that I could actually be earning more by doing onsite freelancing for German companies than doing remote for U.S. companies, but if you factor in the time & money for commuting and the increased cost of living from spending a lot of time in the cities where German companies offering interesting opportunities tend to be based, my disposable income/rate of savings, purchasing power, and quality of life are actually all better by doing remote.
The thing about recruiters you gotta keep in mind is, they're not your friends and they're not here to help you land your dream job. You're just a meal ticket to them and they just want to find some sucker to quickly fill the position as they're in competition with the other recruiters so whoever gets the position filled first gets paid, the others are left hanging. If you start making demands that the employers don't want to hear like remote work, they'll realize you're not a sucker and they won't get their money with you so they'll drop you as a candidate all together even if you would be a great fit for the position.
My question to you was how to you proceed to find good remote jobs? Linkedin? HN? Any advice is appreciated. My email is in my profile if you want to go private.
[0]: https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealth-management/chief-invest...
Pretty soon, rent is going to be too high for someone making 100k Canadian ( if it isn’t already )
Rents in Montreal are going up but still no where near Toronto level. Cost of living is lower too on many levels. Of course it depends on the area but generally it's reasonable.
You can live pretty comfortably on a 75k salary and lots of people in the tech sector make more than this, infosec paying even 6 figures in some places.
I recently turned down an offer from Google for a job in Sunnyvale because even though I might have been paid twice as much, I knew the cost of living was much higher and quality of life probably not as good.
Part of it is that QC has crazy high taxes, which drives down demand and keeps the big money in VAN or YYZ, and also that there are a lot of open / in demand jobs in the QC. They offer decent salaries -- but they want people who are bilingual or purely Francophone. I get weekly notices from LinkedIn for Data Center Mgmt roles around MTL -- HydroQuebec = cheap power and therefore cheap colo -- but I don't speak enough French.
It seems Google will try to influence city government soon or it might already be doing.
Fwiw, I am a foreign grad student currently happy with the lifestyle in Canada. But I'm wondering whether I've made the right career move moving to Canada.
edit: include career growth
I'm in Sydney and we see Amazon do a lot of recruitment sessions here.
That would improve the talent situation here.
It gives some pressure to stay in NZ, but in reality, talented engineers can get over double their salary abroad.
It may sound small but it has a major impact on our happiness, energy levels, and overall well-being.
Maybe we'll be back some day. Toronto is the most likely.
On topic for the parent – we're both Googlers but right now Google has no tech employees in Toronto proper (it's all sales and marketing). Waterloo is the only product/eng office and that's a tough commute. I'm not sure if that is changing with this announcement.
Fwiw I'm a Canadian that just signed a Google offer to work out of downtown SF because I hate the winter too. I think people care more or less about the weather based on their hobbies / interests.
Exceptions don't prove the rule.
There are some idioms that do mean it is unexceptional. You might be familiar with the Pratchettism "Million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten."
We do have a rather comfortable bus which runs from Toronto, if you don't mind the 2 hour (each way) commute.
(The company I worked for was bought by Google back in 2011. We had people in NY and Toronto; all our Toronto people were told we had to move to Waterloo and that was that. Most of us have stayed @ Google but for some the practice of having to rip up their entire lives in Toronto to move wasn't ideal and they left.)
Toronto is not perfect, it has some of the worst weather in Canada. Summers are too hot (due to humidity), and the winter is cold and windy (due to humidity).
It’s not much different than most places in Canada but the lakes add a bite to the -15 to make it feel like the rest of the country (save Vancouver). The rain is brutal in Vancouver, but can keep you busy like cold does in the rest of Canada. Canada’s winter months are synonymous with precipitation, and you might be surprised to find where the most sunshine is.
Most of my friends from Toronto rarely or meaningfully ever leave Toronto to have an informed opinion of all 4 seasons nationally.
Commuting time takes away years of waking living time in GTA and GVRC unless you live downtown, except many startups are leaving downtown for affordability and keeping their people happy. All of this can be balanced away if you get other things that are worth it, including market size relative to Canada.
There are a few entrepreneurial pockets like Waterloo, and even Kelowna that are worth paying attention to. I don’t live in any cities listed here but travel often instead.
Much of BC. The rain is not that bad.
Also, winter is not that bad at all, it's really the long thaw that bites.
And if you live near hills and the countryside, it's fun.
Weather is a barrier to people coming to Canada, but it's generally not a reason people leave.
I was looking to move because I like colder weather/climate change related reasons and I had one recruiter tell me "You can't possibly ever make that much, that's CEO pay!".
Why are salaries so low in Canada ? Now at least owing to the US immigration fiasco, more labour should move in and salaries should technically rise - but I don't see that happening. Not sure why.
Competitive salaries on par with California or even NYC will have a dramatic impact on the influx of immigrants.
Also the quality of the work here is mostly miserable. There's not a lot of interesting stuff.
Things are better if you can find something outside of Toronto where the cost of living is ridiculous. One advantage of the Google Waterloo office...
You sound like an outlier mate.
The TN wasn't responsible for my leaving and it isn't the reason I'm staying away.
Without the TN it's likely you may not have been hired because it's not worth the effort for most companies: T1 is easy, then once you're in they can process it more.
FYI this is not an argument for or against TN.
i.e. you see the world in terms of 'how does this law help me now'.
But from almost any other perspective it's not.
TN visas are mostly 'one way' - to America. It's an opportunity to suck out the best talent (the fruit of public education) for no cost.
Without real reciprocity, there's no benefit to Canadians who wouldn't use the opportunity.
Shockingly, neither government really keeps that much data on TN. Our incompetent governments have really little insight into what works and what does not. A TN is a 'stamp on your passport' that you get at the airport, it should be more centralized.
An easy solution to the asymmetry would simply be to make it '1 for 1', i.e. one American goes to Canada for every reverse.
I don't believe these are 'national/communitarian' vs. 'liberal' arguments, there's many situations we can have our cate and eat it.
> i.e. you see the world in terms of 'how does this law help me now'.
Classically liberal perspective would be "how does this law help individuals now", not me specifically.
The popularisation of almost any liberal policy usually takes the form appealing to the choice/freedom/egoism of the individual. Sometimes in a crude way.
I should have used the third person impersonal 'one sees' not 'you see' as I didn't mean 'you' of course.
True reciprocity would be more or less an equal exchange of talent. I think this might be beneficial.
There might be some opportunities for the Canadian government to effectively market itself in the USA.
From talking with people I know who are still in Canada it sounds like the FAANG companies expanding there presence is starting to fix the wage disparity for tech workers. Without the wage gap there is less incentive to leave. I'd rather just let this continue than rely on some knee jerk government intervention that is likely to have unintended side effects.
> The median Canadian “Software Engineer” salary is CA$72,000. The median US salary is US$91,000.... The cost of living in Vancouver is about 4.8% higher than Austin. While the median Software Engineer salary in Austin is 40% higher than Vancouver when accounting for the exchange rate.
https://medium.com/@sprice/more-canadian-software-engineers-...
You get a 10,000 raise you get 5,700.
Not exactly 50% but pretty close. Add in a healthcare levy at $900 or less and things are getting closer.
https://neuvoo.ca/tax-calculator/?iam=&uet_calculate=calcula...
Using the USD equivalent amount in CA https://neuvoo.com/tax-calculator/?iam=&uet_calculate=calcul...
Works out to ~$74k
And that’s including our healthcare and other social services. That ~$2000 CAD goes a long, long way and I’d rather have it doing what it’s doing than gain it for what I’d lose.
And the marginal rate is not what you end up paying.
I know a lot of worthy causes that could benefit from the $2000 where it would make a meanful impact.
Still think it's a good idea? A lot of health related causes could use the remaining 2000.
And my 2000 figure is the difference you pay when making an extra 10,000 at the 100,000 level.
This is another persistent myth I wish would die. For example, between 1998 and 2018 (a recent 20 year period for which data is readily available), USD/CAD exchange rate has been as favourable as 0.989 CAD per USD and as unfavourable as 1.570 CAD per USD [1], approximately a 59% difference between the highest and the lowest.
During the same period, purchasing power parity has only fluctuated between 1.185 and 1.248 CAD per USD [2], only a 5% difference between the highest and the lowest.
Contrary to the popular online belief, Canadian currency is not a proxy that is only good for exchanging for USD to buy good and services. It is an independent and strong currency on its own.
[1] https://data.oecd.org/conversion/exchange-rates.htm
[2] https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...
I'm a Canadian working for a US FAANMG company, and I've been based out of both their Canadian and European offices.
I make way more in Vancouver than my peers in ANY European office (which include Zurich, London, Berlin)
And those places are more expensive than Vancouver (not counting buying real estate which is not relevant to me as a renter)
But of course I'm keenly aware that I'd make 30% more in Seattle, and 50% more in Silicon Valley.
Does it bother me? Not really. I've been to those places and I would take the lifestyle quality of both Vancouver and Canada over any part of the US. Plus these days, I don't see a way of living in the US, and not feeling complicit in all the evils of the country. Not without radical participation in trying to destroy the system from within.
And despite what people say about the similarity in work culture, it's more reasonable in Canada from sick leave to vacation, to day-to-day expectations of work-life balance.
As is always the case with protectionist policies, the country imposing them experiences a net loss.
Both sides lose equal amounts. It's just that the larger economy notices it less.
Things haven’t changed in any particular way on TN status, L status, or B-2 status.