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throwaway1979

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada.

1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area.

2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers.

3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants.

4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their dog) was working on a startup. Toronto and Vancouver don't compare.

5) I am very jaded by the govt influence on R&D. This attracts the wrong sort of people. e.g. I've heard of consulting firms that will write your proposal and greatly increase your odds of success - all you have to do is give them a 25% cut. Frankly, the cost of creating a startup is low enough that if you believe in your idea/revenue generation potential, you should not waste time writing proposals.

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I'll bite.

While it is true that there are less companies you would expect would pay Bay Area size salaries, things have changed in Canada.

potatolicious told me to write this for the public good.

I work for Mozilla.

New grads, admittedly with co-op experience, get paid at least 90k+ with the same 30% bonus as all Mozilla employees, putting them in the 6-digit range mentioned in the thread.

Amazon recently opened an engineering office in Toronto, and Zynga has been here for a while, Google is in Kitchener, 1 hour away from Toronto.

A friend running a startup was complaining about the war for talent going on and was willing to pay salaries well in the NYC/Bay area range.

Food for thought?

While its true that employees tend to be less promiscuous as they can be in the peninsula, it is not true that developers do not have interesting work to do in Canada or that they won't be well paid.

While Mozilla has offices in Vancouver, I do not know enough about the city to talk about the situation there.

edit: missed part of a sentence. oops

Agreed. There's basically only a couple of reasons to start your startup in Canada.

* Portable, cheap healthcare. A lot of people in the US don't join a startup due to the health insurance issue. The healthcare you get from a startup is not even close to what a big company can offer you.

* You're like me (no CS degree) and the US government doesn't think you look like an engineer. This can be worked around, but for me, the issue dogged me at almost every turn.

You're second point is pretty much the reason why I ended up joining a startup in Canada. I got job offers from Facebook and Google for twice the pay, but I couldn't get a tn visa. According to the Canadian government I am not qualified to work there since I dropped out of College.

But yeah if it weren't for that there wouldn't have been much incentive to stick around.

> According to the Canadian government I am not qualified to work there since I dropped out of College.

The US Government, you mean.

Absolutely anecdotal, but on the second point I found the US easier to deal with than Canada. Not because of the government, but because no Canadian companies (and definitely startups) were prepared to sponsor me.

Largely it was because they'd never done it before- US companies are very familiar with it. So, I left Canada and now live in the US.

1. Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money. Also living in downtown with no car as opposed to driving everywhere in Bay area and paying crazy rent. It is not that clear cut imo. NYC is a better comparison probably

2. Not sure on this not enough experience

3. It is trivial to get a visa for Canada to work, compared to US there is no comparison. Note that for Canadian citizens it is different in US (much easier)

4. Yeah thats true, Toronto probably has the biggest community and it is small in comparison

5. So true, the whole thing is a scam. I actually worked on couple projects where these consultants were used. It is embarrassing.

re. 1: Your parent looks like a legit "throw away", but he's actually not! :)

> "Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money."

Just from my own circles - $125-150K base, with additional equity/bonuses on top, in NYC, for a bunch of nerds only 1-3 years out of undergrad. The range is similar in SF/SV. This is astronomical by "pretty decent" Toronto standards.

IMO the notion that NYC/SF/SV compensation eats Canadian salaries for lunch is not really that controversial nor ambiguous. I am easily earning over 2x what I would pull off in Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver.

[edit] There's an additional point of on top of this: Canada has essentially no major innovative software institutions. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, et al act as anchors in their respective communities and their influence can't be discounted.

They attract talented people who actually give a hoot about the impact of the things they work on, and provide a talent pool for startups to draw from. They also act as a cushion against the risks of startup-dom, as most capable engineers have a (very decent) plan B.

The equation in the US often works out like "I can go work on a nimble team doing really cool stuff that impacts real people and possibly get rich. Even if we fail, I walk back into a 6-figure job working on really cool stuff still." - this has a tremendous impact on the startup scene, and simply does not exist at all in Canada.

Your expenses are probably much higher though. Generally people adjust by downgrading their standard of living. It's not unusual to be making $100K+ in SF and have a roommate. I can't imagine what it's like in NYC.

Conceptually true, in reality not so much. The additional expense of living in SF/NYC does not at all cancel out the additional pay. I've done this calculation many times - no matter which way you slice it, you earn substantially more in real terms in the US.

Just doing some quick napkin math now - to maintain my existing NYC lifestyle in Toronto (and my current savings rate) I'd need to be in the $100-110K range. Who's heard of a guy 3 years out of undergrad making $110K in Toronto?!

110k 3 years out of college is very rare in NYC as well.

EDIT: It is certainly not unheard of, but only for top graduates. Also, I see you were talking about equivalent 110k salary in Toronto which would be 130-140k in New York. This is a high base salary by any standard.

I'm certainly not a top graduate - I eked out of university with a 72% average. Neither are the other Canadian expats I know who are pulling this kind of cash - all are smart and hard-working, but none were among the top of their classes.

$110K 3 years out of college, at least in the current climate, is not at all uncommon in either NYC or SF/SV. It is not universal, but it's not rare either. If you look at the major investment banks, the institutional tech companies (see: Google), and the startups in NYC, this is the going rate for a mid-level engineer (i.e., $100-140K base). Hell, I have trouble finding fresh undergrads starting below $90K in these areas.

The point is, someone who is skilled at programming right now and has a few years of experience under their belt can very well pull at least $120K base, and even adjusting for cost of living differences, that's a hell of a lot more money than you can get in Canada.

In any case, this somewhat distracts from the point - it's not just about money. Myself and many other Canadian expats do not feel we can go back to Canada without working for the likes of SAP, IBM, TD, Royal, or any of the vast number of institutional enterprise companies that pound out rote, uninteresting code. There are some companies in Canada doing interesting work, but they are few and far between, demand for these jobs is intense, and job security sucks (after all, what incentive is there to treat you well when the employer knows they're the only interesting game in town?).

Compare with the SF/SV/NYC/SEA, where you can't throw a rock without hitting a row of innovative, interesting tech companies doing interesting things. We are hacking on interesting, immensely impactful things here, and we enjoy tremendous respect and security - after all, if management starts screwing around you hop down the street and go do something else that's interesting. The Canadian landscape looks incredibly bleak in comparison - a small handful of elite shops that everyone's clamoring to work for, and a vast tundra of code sweatshops where the problems are as uninteresting as the salary.

My view is that "institutional" companies are starting to do innovative things with modern technology (NoSQL, Cloud, Mobility, etc.), but it requires younger people to seek out the opportunity to change these companies from within. There's a big wave of IT retirement coming over the next 5 to 7 years as the old guard dies out and the open source generation comes of age. Given the absolutely astronomical amounts of money these companies are used to paying for the equivalent of "three programmers , 2 weeks, and a case of beer" work, there's a lot of money to be made.

The challenge of course is politics, but that exists everywhere - Google has its own flavor (good luck using anything but Python, C, or Java, for example). Startups certainly have less politics, but just tend to be intensely personal affairs that revolve tremendously around the founder's personality and value system. Plus they tend to require commitments above and beyond what people that want families are able to provide. Large companies provide a much higher probability that you can have huge impact on people's day to day lives within a 5 year period, in my opinion - if you land the right project, with good management.

No question that people in their 20's should try a startup gig -- I moved to SF and NYC myself at ages 20 and 22, respectively (I dropped out to do it), and don't regret it. I even made a run back to SF at age 30 to try a startup again, this time as an executive (it failed). But I'm making more money now in IT because startups taught me how to get things done, which is an insight in very short supply in most large companies.

On the other hand, I haven't seen too many high-end SAP technical jobs that were "rote"... soul-sucking, sure, as you're working for the man, but still requiring a lot of brain power. I refuse to do it because I find more pleasure in torturing SAP consultants than joining them.

So how exactly would you recommend going about finding a programming job in the U.S? Are there any resources you found particularly useful given that I have no connections, little knowledge of the job market, and respectable (but no niche or outstanding side projects, mediocore GPA, etc.) skills that would render me invisible in the eyes of "top" employers like Google?

I've heard so much about how the grass is greener on the other side but it is not so easy for some of us to join in on the action. I have a bachelors in CS and two years of Canadian experience under the belt.

For example I've found indeed.ca to be very useful for locating job openings in most Canadian cities and http://www.grasmick.com/ was recommended to me by some expats.

Recruiters may be your best way to get your foot in the door. Once you're here the jobs seems to find themselves - tech events, meetups, and other events will quickly build a network, and at least for now, you'd never want for a job.

First things first: get a LinkedIn profile if you don't have one already. Spruce it up, keyword it straight to hell - name drop pretty much every technology, field, and subfield you have substantial experience in. Almost all recruiters rely heavily (some would say exclusively) on LinkedIn for discovery, make sure you're positioned to show up in their searches.

Secondly, if you have friends in the Bay Area, Seattle, or NYC, they're probably being contacted daily by recruiters - tell them to send some your way. US recruiters may not be actively seeking out Canadians, but if a qualified one lands on their doorsteps I'm certain they would be pleased.

I have a recruiter I've worked with in the past I'm happy with (disclosure: I don't get any kickbacks or anything), if you want to contact me privately we can see if there's a fit there (email in my profile).

I appreciate the offer and will take you up on it later once I have done my due diligence.

In case you are curious the situation here in Calgary (not a tech hub by any definition) is entirely different. The recruiters use similar tactics but the pool of working professionals is rather limited so you quickly develop a reputation. Sometimes you get the feeling that the it's the same players shuffling around a dozen employers.

The economics however are completely different because imo job opportunities are very limited. The base salaries you are describing for a recent grad (or American mid-senior level developer) are on par with middle management with approximately 15 years of experience.... So from a financial perspective it's really a no brainer many of peers who can leave are long gone. It's rather depressing but I almost feel like the Canadian education system is a farm team for American software companies.

All the companies you are mentioning are very hard to get into for an average guy without connections. Also, it is university and your network that matters, not your place in class.

It's not that uncommon to pull $100k+ if you're solid with co-op background. 5 years out of undergrad I was in the $145k base range (more with bonus).

The real trick in Canada (especially smaller markets like Calgary) is to be an independent contractor... talented guys pull in $95-110 per hour (minus 10-15% if you need a broker), $150-175 per hour or more if you're in a specialty with big demand. HR departments here lag the USA and can't accept what techs are worth.

What kind of company do you work for? Which "broker" do you recommend, if any?

I'm independent, with my own company; my current long term client is in transportation.

Many brokers (i.e. corporations that handle administrative matters for you as an independent, such as liability or E&O insurance, invoicing & payment, etc.) are regional. The ones I deal with are in Western Canada these days, such as SI Systems, Brightspot, Inti Solutions, or Quadrus.

I agree, contract work is where you can make more money.

"HR departments here lag the USA and can't accept what techs are worth." You are referring to full-time work right?

Yes, full time work. HR departments rarely get involved with contract rates, they'd have a heart attack after their first SAP project.

Meh, Vancouver is significantly more expensive than seattle, and only a bit cheaper than the Bay Area. You can have similar wages in seattle as you would in the bay and pay half for your rent, less in taxes, less in car costs, food & shopping. And you'll still be close to family if you grew up in BC. If you want to live cheap, go live in the east bay. In vancouver, not so much.

The amazing thing about T.O. is that the cost of living is a lot less so in practice you will have a lot more disposable income here in Canada.

#3... it is not trivial to get a work permit in Canada these days. Your employer has to involve themselves in an official recruitment process and show that none of the candidates qualified. This requirement is an almost US green card like requirement. By comparison the H-1B (us work permit) is much easier to get. Getting a work permit is relatively easy if you are in oil related (non office) work, but not if in technology.

Perhaps there may be some loopholes for new companies (aka startups), but I am not sure.

I thought that NAFTA had clauses for IT workers (of course this only applies to US citizens).

I've recently joined a Canadian startup, and I'm less cynical than I was at one point—and I'm an emigré from the U.S. in any case (who has gotten invitations to interview with several big-name U.S. organizations).

1. Yes, a lot of folks who can't see past the dollars leave. I've done the math and for me to work in the Valley, I would need to make almost three times what I make, because I'd also be losing my wife's teacher salary as income (which is about 80% of my current salary). She also doesn't want to live in the U.S.—we happen to like our health care and the relative calm of Canada.

2. There are several startups in the space where I work (we are all at least partially funded by the same fund) and they're all pretty interesting.

3. Sadly, you're right about the Harper government's unfriendliness toward immigration. At some point, they will be turfed and saner immigration policies will be reinstated. Hopefully, someone will also have the political will to fix our shameful treatment of certain skilled immigrants as well (doctors should not be invited to Canada on the basis of their skills and then denied certification because the provinces have jurisdiction over said certification).

4. If you're in the right spots in Toronto, it's fairly easy to find startups. If you're not, it's harder. I suspect it's a bit like New York, where there's a lot of financial software development because Toronto, like New York, is the financial centre of its country.

5. I'm not sure what the government influence through things like SR&ED is…every company I've worked for that used SR&ED basically came up with submittable work based on what we did as part of our regular roadmap.

I'm quite happy to stay here and work for startups here.

Really surprised by all the negative comments around (5) here.

With SR&ED its possible to get back a substantial amount (like 2/3) of the money you invested into development. Another way of looking at it, is that it's like doing your development at offshore rates, except working with local talent.

In fact, it self-propagates: Fund your initial development, get back a portion via SR&ED, use that toward development, get back a portion via SR&ED etc.

Our start-up has really benefited from this, and frankly I don't understand why any company (big or small) who has an eligible project would not apply for this.

It is actually reasonably easy to find out what CRA is looking for, by attending a CRA public information session or two, and then filling out the paperwork yourself. Consultants "increase the odds of success" purely because they understand what the CRA is looking for -- but it really is not that complicated and can be picked up easily just by going to an info session.

If you can't be bothered to spend the time doing it yourself, then who's to say its not worth giving up 25% of the 2/3 you could get back.

I totally agree the SR&ED is a huge plus for canadian companies. I've co-founded or been part of many successful startups in Canada and they were in part successful because of the SR&ED program. As long as you design and/or develop algorithms and software/hardware that improve canadian R&D you qualify for the service. $100k spent on the first year will give ~ $60K the next year, which you re-invest in R&D, and that gives you $36k the next (e.g. you double your origin $100k investment in two years), etc...

There's also the IRAP program from NRC which can be good. I've used it quite a few times for small projects. If you qualify for the program, IRAP will match your companies contributions up to a dollar amount, for the approved project.

Its also worth noting that SR&ED (specifically the ED part which is typically applicable to startups), only cares that you are seeking, systematically and in the face of technical uncertainty, for technical advancement within your organization.

They don't care whether the outcome of this search is successful or not.

This means you have the incentive to risk the funds on such an endeavour, as you can get the credit despite your success or failure.

Risk real money, and you'll get a refundable tax credit with a chq in the mail.

Risk "virtual" money (e.g. accrue a salary that you might only pay out later provided you have sufficient cash flow), and you get credits that can be carried and applied in years when you had/have real money.

One of the implications, is that if things end up going sideways, you still have the option to e.g. switch your startup to doing something else (like contract work), apply the old credits to the new money and recover something of your risk.

@pcc are there any limitations on how many employees you have? Can single founders apply?

In principle anyone with eligible work can apply. Its even possible for unincorporated individuals to claim SR&ED on personal tax.

I would recommend though that you go to one of the public info sessions held in your area, since there are various angles to be aware of, that will help you optimize your claim. For example:

- a small Canadian corp typically gets a better rate than a claim on personal tax;

- if you're a "specified employee" (meaning you own 10% or more of the corp) they place certain caps on things like how much of the "proxy amount" you can apply in your claim

- a lot of the claim revolves around how much of your expenses was for eligible work. You typically have to be careful that a founder who is also doing marketing etc, is only claiming for the portion of time spent on the R&D part.

They go into all of this in the public info sessions, and they typically have specialists from various SR&ED areas available to answer pretty much any question.

You can also call them on various info lines, e.g. they offer a "first-time claimant" service where they try to make it easier for people looking at doing a first SR&ED claim, even coming out to visit your business if helpful.

They also offer a "preclaim project review" service where they'll give you a prelim opinion on the eligibility of a project, without you having to file a formal claim. (While this is not guarantee, it can for instance be used while raising funding, to demonstrate to prospective investors that you have a reasonable expectation of getting SR&ED support).

In fact there are a lot of public info sessions coming up in the near future: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/txcrdt/sred-rsde/smnr-eng.html

Great thanks. What deters me is R&D, if someone wants to make a Saas web application, say something like basecamp, to me there isn't really much research required other than what is already publicly available in books/tutorials.

How can someone receive a grant for something like that? (Or do you have to fudge the truth?)

1) Money is everything? Toronto no, but I would like to live in BC and I wouldn't care about the pay as long as I could live. We hire a lot of people who just want to be happy in a nice town and have a family. This 'all for money' thing is just shortsighted and naive. You will live to 95 and be sane for most(all) of it. That's not long and don't waste it.

2) Yeah that's actually normal here (EU) too, not sure if the VCs in Silicon Valley are generally(!) different though? (question here :)

3) Was that different? I once applied via a someone who knew what he was talking about and he said if you are under 40 and have plenty of money it's a shoe-in, otherwise it sucks. This is 8 years ago.

4) I can see that, but so what? You want to meet great people or you want to meet great people at startups? Anecdote; I was standing in the supermarket in this 40 people (!) town in Spain and behind me was this old scruffy guy. I was playing with my s2 and he said something like amazing tech. He is a founder of a quantum computing texan company who goes here on vacation. I met more interesting ACTUAL good people here than in Berlin. I don't know about SV but I don't really care about wannabe's, I want to meet people I can learn from and/or start something with; in startup-mekka people have little experience and are engaged to be married to some crap anyway all the time. And cocky. Work for life, not money! It's all too short. I digress.

5) This is also a thing they have in most EU countries; big companies find it great as they do that paperwork anyway, small companies drown in the paperwork. I did a 6 year project like that and the paperwork took around 25% of the time. That doesn't sound like a lot but it REALLY doesn't benefit the research. Agreeing with the parent here; big companies use & abuse, small companies don't.

> This 'all for money' thing is just shortsighted and naive.

Money matters and Money is everything are two very different mindsets, and I doubt the GP is advocating the latter.

Disagree completely about (5) in the context of SR&ED in Canada.

It is actually pretty easy -- you might spend a few days out of a whole year to pull it together, and get back back 2/3 of your R&D expenditure. Surprised that more start-ups don't go for this.

As a Canadian who has worked at start ups in the bay area and returned to Canada, #4 is a big turn off. I like my work, but I like being able to escape the startup world and have a heterogeneous social circle. It surprises me that people aren't more outspoken against the bay area for that reason.

I'm actually in a similar position and thinking about moving to the valley. I've actually done a lot of research on the visa stuff as well, not sure about the college degree stuff and how it would affect things, but mobility for Canadians to the US seems to be ok? http://designcodelearn.com/2012/08/22/to-sf-from-canada/

> 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants.

Can someone please elaborate on this one ?

I presume GP talks about tightening rules on immigration. Federal Skilled Worker program that was the main source of skilled immigrants to Canada several years ago was a point system where factors like your age, education, work experience, marital status, number of official languages you speak, and secured job offer were contributing to the overall score and your occupation did not matter.

Some time ago, this programme became limited to the specific list of occupations, with application limit per occupation and overall cap. And, software developers were not on the list. As of July 1st 2012, Canada temporarily stopped accepting applications until "early 2013" to implement some more changes.

Thanks.

After some Google-Fu I found the "proposed changes" you were talking about

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2012/...

and yes, software engineering is not on the list

http://www.canadavisa.com/new-instructions-federal-skilled-w...

The best option seems to be PhD! One can apply for permanent residency two years into their PhD programs.

re 5: SR&ED (the program I assume you're referencing) is 'free' money. If my company can make back 3/4 of a developers salary by doing "proposal writing" why wouldn't they do that?

Increasingly you get led down an endless paper trail of showing documentation, code reviews & ccra is now in the business of sicking auditors on claims to aggressively deny them. Wasted time & headaches.

This has not been my experience at all, over the past few years.

Go to an info session to find out exactly what CRA's eligibility rules are. It is not that difficult to apply. Generally I have found their attitude to be "the money is there and we really want to give it to you -- because it comes from the taxpayer we just need to do due diligence that what you are claiming is in accordance with the tax act"

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