So what you need to think about is this: if you would be putting away, say, $50k less a year in Vancouver, it's essentially like you're paying $50k more to live there. Is it worth it to you?
Compared to San Fran, it has a more hospitable and interesting climate, the culture is perhaps less vivacious but definitely safer and more genteel, the outdoors and recreation opportunities nearby blow away anything in California, and the fact that the local institutions and governments are still relatively well-run has a positive impact on the long term stability of the place.
The question is: are you looking for somewhere to _live_, to settle, to raise a family, to put down roots? Are you looking for somewhere to be _from_? Or are you a member of the globetrotting class, working wherever you feel like, being _from_ nowhere?
If the latter, then you may as well follow the money for as long as you can. If the former, then it may well be worth some numeric financial sacrifices in order to actually have a better life. There's probably plenty of equivalents in "flyover" states and the like, where you can live for cheap and be safe and stable relative to the major cities.
That is, if your only consideration is financial; which is an equally irrational way to live your life. You have to consider the social cost of uprooting yourself and moving around - there is huge value in building not just a "network" but an actual group of friends, other families, etc. to form community. This of course is something often missed by the sort of small-souled bugmen that are attracted to working at high-value Silicon Valley jobs, "changing the world" by "disrupting" the way people deliver pizza or call a cab. (Imagine pouring out your best years slaving away at something so meaningless!)
If you spend the early years of your career living in an $2000/mo room in some bunkhouse, not developing real connections with anyone, and then drop out of the sky in another city as you approach 30, don't be surprised if you've missed out on many of the other things that actually make life worth living, and don't be surprised if you've paid other opportunity costs. Maybe you miss out on finding the love of your life, or don't find them until you're too old to start a family. Maybe you find yourself permanently rootless, unable to form a cohesive friend group, perhaps even skeptical that they actually exist.
Or just notice all the human shit on the street in SF and realize that you could actually live somewhere you honestly liked to be. It's that simple.
2 is possible, 4 seems like a big stretch. Are you really comparing apples to apples? Or are you working for Google and comparing against someone working for a random consultancy firm in Victoria? In Montréal, top software developers salaries are around 200K CAD, a bit more if you go at Google, and Montreal pays less than other cities.
Particularly on the island, in Victoria, it's quite possible for an entry level position to earn only around 33,000 to 45,000 CDN.
If there aren't good jobs there then it's a different story.
Edit: apparently my perspective is dated; see the replies.
https://www.vicnews.com/business/booming-tech-sector-in-grea...
It's not particularly useful to make claims that one can earn enormous amounts by changing region without also acknowledging that such an opportunity is only available to a small minority.
Sure, you and your social sphere have done well; but what about the population in aggregate?
Not everyone will or can work at a FAANG, or is competent enough to rise to that compensation level within those companies.
You're comparing SF to the whole Canada. If you zoom in to just Vancouver and Toronto, less than 75k is definitely smaller local companies. Similar to some no-name companies in SF in general won't net you close 200k TC.
SAP new grads TC can hit $100k and this company is considered to pay the least among Salesforce (and Tableau), Microsoft, Amazon, Shopify, Splunk, etc around Vancouver.
Senior Devs (outside the list above) avg base pay in Vancouver is around 130-140k at entry (newly minted Sr. Dev) before bonuses (10-20%), RRSP matching, and stock if the company is public.
Toronto have more tech companies that pay similar avg I believe.
Definitely it's not $285k for intermediate dev (SDE2) for SF Bay but Vancouver and Toronto have established themselves as tech hotspot in Canada leaving the rest.
On the other hand, I agree with you on the point of your saving rate provided that you are young without family. With Family, I believe you have to pay extra health-insurance out of your own pocket. You might have to pay extra for education as well (or pay extra to live in better neighborhood).
I make really good money for my 3 years of experience (compared to others in my city with my level of experience) but it's just such a hilariously large gap at this point that it'd be dumb for me not to at least try and get a job.
And I've said elsewhere in thread, I'd happily move my family down (I'm a US citizen) if I thought it was possible to buy health insurance that would guarantee coverage for all issues. I've heard too many stories of insurance companies refusing to pay for emergency treatments because the hospital happened to be out of network.
Are your top earning friends L4 or equivalent? If not the comparison is worthless.
Those looks very much like junior level salaries. 90-100K$ CAD for a junior position at one of the FANG in Canada is as low as you can go.
And I agree that this is not common at all but OP was talking about "top earning" friends.
However, even taking your median figure of 100k, I doubt the median salary in the bay for a senior software engineer is 300K USD (4 times more).
You might want to get more up to date info on that.
I think about moving us to the Bay Area, but I'm now so terrified of what happens if one of us gets sick and insurance decides not to cover it for whatever reason.
Also, at least outside of Toronto, I feel like I can pick any decent-sized city in Canada and not be in danger of putting my kids in an underfunded school district. Violent crime rates here are lower, property crime rates are lower.
But yeah, I'm giving up probably $200k/year for it. We're doing okay, though.