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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

Canadian tech startups are hilarious. The domestic media likes to play up Hootsuite in Vancouver like it's a big deal. Maybe in the context of Vancouver's size of tech job market... But it's absolutely nothing compared to what exists in Seattle or anywhere in California or places in NY, Texas, etc.

The unfortunate lesson that every Canadian working in the tech field will learn is that if you're really talented and experienced, you're going to ultimately be faced with the stark choice of accepting a dramatically lower salary for the privilege of living and working in Vancouver or Toronto, maybe because you have family obligations or can't/won't move to the USA. While you will see your peers who are free to move take jobs at double the salary in USD-equivalent in the US.

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Honestly fuck Canadian tech companies. The pay is literally half or even a third of what we can earn in the states. The rise of remote work has been such an amazing development for Canadian software developer. Really there isn’t much point in living in a Canadian tech city like Vancouver or Toronto since it makes no sense to work for a Canadian company anymore. Even taking a remote job at any run of the mill non flashy firm in the states will pay more than anyone pays in Canada, so may as well just move out to Winnipeg or Halifax.

Some of us enjoy the culture, food and network of living in a large city. There’s a whole world in what your day to day is between living in the 3rd biggest city in US-Canada and living in Winnipeg. Both are fine, but they are different, not interchangeable

Sure, if you like it for its own sake but I’m just saying that there is no career advantage to living in Toronto rather than Winnipeg now, since I’ll probably never again work for any Canadian company.

An ironic comment in a story about long-term bets going bad.

I'm Canadian, and I lived in Vancouver for six years recently. Never once did I consider working for a Canadian company. They're a joke when it comes to compensation. You can literally double your salary by moving 100 miles south to Seattle, in the same company! When I changed jobs earlier this year, some companies had location based pay for remote work. They made me a lowball offer, I told them it was too low, and I didn't even bother negotiating further with them. I just focused on the other offers.

>Canadian tech startups are hilarious. The domestic media likes to play up Hootsuite in Vancouver like it's a big deal.

Don't forget how, after Trump's election in 2016, Canadian media proclaimed at length how hordes of tech companies and employees would flee north of the border. Montreal as "AI superpower", anyone?

It's sad but true. I took a remote job from the states when the pandemic hit and I'm never going back to domestic jobs.

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