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Comment by Sukotto | Hacker News Reader

Many non-tech friends/family have told me that Victoria BC has a booming tech industry (esp in gaming). Can anyone confirm that for me? I haven't found very much online about it so feel a bit doubtful.

I'm Canadian and moving back to Victoria next month from NY. The current plan is to push hard on a small service business for the airline industry (so I'm not in a hurry to find a new job). Even so, I've been away for over a decade and the place is likely to have changed a lot.

If you are in Victoria, the island, Vancouver, or the sunshine coast, I would love to buy you lunch (or just a coffee) and chat about the lay of the tech landscape in the area. Email's in my profile if you're up for it.

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Victoria "booming" is a pretty extraordinary claim. I'm in Vancouver, and there is at least some startup activity, but I can't think of much in Victoria. Maybe from a non-tech perspective it looks that way, but look at the companies in both locations and see which are hiring. It's probably the most objective way of finding out which is "booming".

I live and work in Victoria, and have for the past 5 years. I currently work for a company that is hiring, and know of several others that are as well. Booming is, of course, relative, and probably refers to the difficulty everyone has finding talented devs (and wages are starting to rise due to that), rather than a direct comparison to the number of companies or size of the market. It's definitely not comparable to Seattle, or even Vancouver (and certainly not SV).

Wages aren't exactly the greatest, expenses aren't exactly the lowest - and there's a real lack of depth in both talent and places to work. On the other hand, there are plenty of people doing start ups because they don't want to leave - you just have to know where to look.

(also, sent you an email)

There is viatec which shows a listing of possible tech companies. Go through the list and see their hiring pages.

It might be booming for Victoria since a industry sector that is actually growing in the area, but I doubt it's much compared to NYC/SF. For comparison, Seattle across the pond pays more, is easier to find a job, has significantly cheaper housing, shopping, airfare and taxes and doesn't have a housing bubble waiting to pop. And your not stuck on an island with a $50 & 3 hr one way ferry barrier. Victoria can be a frustrating place at times.

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