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Comment by ttul | Hacker News Reader

If you get into a senior role at one of the big tech firms, pay matches the valley. For lesser roles, Canada is cheaper, but the gap is closing rapidly as talent runs dry.

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Senior roles in SF/NY pay >600k in total comp.

I was flat out told there are no such jobs in Canada two years back. Has that changed?

What do you mean by "senior roles"? Something like a "Senior Software Engineer"? (or more like a Senior Staff SWE / director)

Can guarantee Senior Software Engineers don't make >600K in SF.

The above was referring to total comp. From what I have read, annual stock/RSU compensation is equivalent to salary. I have read that a $300,000 salary is not unheard of for a senior FAANG engineering role.

300 in total comp is not unheard of for senior roles in the SF Bay Area market. 600 is a whole other story short of severe equity appreciation.

I've had offers for 800k.

Where?

It's rather rare, from what I can tell. Esp. in the context of immigration, h1bdata can be useful. Google llc has precisely 1 software engineer certified at a salary above 300k. 250k, more achievable, with very senior status.

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.

I think the RSUs and bonuses aren’t included in those H1B data reports. Anyone L5 and higher (as well as many L4s) at Google is pulling in at least 300k in total liquid compensation per year.

Correct. I was just using that as a benchmark for base salary, and apparently even that is flawed.

Just to be clear, that salary is prevailing wage which is usually lower than the actual salary you're getting (does not include RSUs or stock on top of that). In my case the difference was about 30 to 40% lower.

Fascinating, thank you for the clarification.

Salary means the non-equity portion of your pay that you get paid in cash on a fixed interval. Salary by definition excludes RSUs or stocks.

The PERM / H1B figures only show base salary and exclude RSUs which for most big tech companies is the larger factor at senior and above levels. Netflix pay all cash so their PERM figures are much more representative and match the levels.fyi numbers pretty well, giving me confidence that those self reported figures are broadly accurate.

(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.)

This is why a simplifying assumption was made with the 1:1 ratio of salary:RSUs. Obviously it matters when comparing two companies, but in this case the question was simply "who makes 600k" and the answer is 'probably nobody unless the stock did real gud'

The salary:stock ratio increases the higher Your level. 600k would likely be an L7 offer, though you could reach that at a lower level through stock appreciation.

I was also talking about total comp, and like you noted >300K is common for senior software engineers, but >600K is unheard of.

That's high, but not crazy high. A Staff Engineer at a FAANG can make ~$500k. See:

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.

Potential ambiguity here. Yes, “staff” engineers at google earn very high salaries, but people unfamiliar with titles might think this term means a competent but otherwise unremarkable member of the technical staff.

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.

The point I'm making in my comment is that "Senior Software Engineers" are not making >600K in SF.

"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)

Yes but not everybody can get to this level of compensation even in SF

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

No, $600k in SF is better than $200k in Canada in probably all circumstances. As long as your housing costs don’t scale with your income, you are already winning with an extra $100k of comp per year. That isn’t even considering that lots of things are more expensive in Canada, taxes are a bit higher, and Vancouver and Toronto aren’t cheap.

Where in Canada? Winnipeg? That's not where these offices are going.

Google's announcement was 1000 Montreal, 1000 Toronto, 3000 Kitchener-Waterloo. Montreal and KW being the engineering locations. Both Montreal and KW have much more reasonable housing, and are far cheaper than Toronto/Vancouver.

Gosh if you just save that salary for 5 years in the US you wont need to work for life.

Legitimately one of the reasons it’s hard to keep top talent: they save for a few years and either retire or start their own companies.

Yes, that has changed.

Nice, I'll definitely try again. I can't handle the 30C+ days.

So who in Toronto is paying senior or staff developers with 10 years of experience the local equivalent of >$400k USD (in lower cost cities than NYC/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.

Could you please name a couple of places that do? A lot of people I know would definitely appreciate this knowledge.

I know people who joined post IPO and make more than that at Shopify as Senior Developers. Is primarily equity though. Salaries do lag in Canada vs USA.

How much of that is because of the stock tripling in the last year? Or were their initial grants significantly higher than initial salary?

Not even remotely close for senior roles. Nowhere near.

Yep; I have friends in the 250k to 500k USD bracket who pine away at the notion of moving back home to Canada, but there's no way in hell they'd maintain that level of compensation.

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