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Comment by OlivierLi | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Canadian software engineering student and I find this article insulting. The author blames recent graduates for wanting to be paid a decent wage. I guess he's missing the point that he only gets to be in the position he is in because other people before him thought it was a good idea to invest in Canada and make its quality of living rise above third world levels.

Also I'm not trying to be insulting but since when is Facebook marketing equivalent to building "cutting edge platforms".

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I'm inclined to agree: As other comments have noted, the author had all of the upside in the business and in my reading seemed not too concerned about the potential downside for his employees should the venture fail.

Yup ... I feel the same way. Frankly, I think Canadian developers aren't paid enough. That's one of the reasons for the brain drain to the US. I recall in 2006, some of the smartest masters CS students I knew were getting offers around 55-60K in Toronto!

"The author blames recent graduates for wanting to be paid a decent wage" ... 75k is not an entry-level/recent grad salary.

Canadian engineers are in high demand in Silicon Valley where you can easily start for 50% more than that.

Maybe 75K is high for a recent graduate but I would certainly not expect to be paid a fifth of that like the author boasts he was able to pay his offshore hires. Especially since that makes it fall below minimum wage at 35h/week.

Depends on your industry. For what the OP does? Not so much. However, I'm 2 years out of uni making just that + benefits (Pension, Bonus, etc.) and have a few friends doing even better. I don't consider myself anywhere near top tier as far as software engineering talent goes because I have met plenty of people who exceed my skills completely. That all said to ask me to work for you when my options are taking a massive pay cut for a high risk venture are not likely.

But yet, it is.

I know many people who have been in that range within a couple of years of graduation - not senior by any means. $75K for someone with a light sprinkling of experience is the market, at least in major urbans like Toronto.

Does that make it a reasonable business decision to hire someone when you have the skills and environment to leverage labor from other markets? I suspect the salaries are high partly because most employers are willing to pay a high premium for on-site workers.

I also suspect many employers have this preference partly because they are more comfortable working with people of their own background, culture, and class. I don't think that is an attitude anyone has a moral obligation to encourage.

Yup, basically the author is cheap and does not respect quality talent and does not believe in fair compensation. It's clear when he says 'it was a tough pill to swallow' which also means highly egoist. I'd recommend staying away from his company any day even if he wants you.

Why do you think he found less quality talent in Argentine? It's just cost of living there is less and smaller salary could be enough.

Argentine? I think you did not get the point. I meant he most likely does not respect quality talented programmers in Canada and think paying 75K for his 1st engineer is overpriced, he is viewing the problem from only one lens: money.

He's viewing the problem from one lens: runway. Lower upfront costs equal a greater chance of survival for a startup. What's the issue in that? Not all of us have access to gigantic amounts of liquidity for our hobby-shops.

No, he looks at it one way: value.

If he can get a SMARTER, MORE EXPERIENCED, CHEAPER developer in Argentina, why on earth would he hire a Canadian developer?

his post only emphasizes on one point: CHEAPER. He himself acknowledges there are more talented and experienced people in Canada but he won't hire them.

" I didn’t choose guys that were second best to those here in Canada, I selected the cream of the crop. " -- please quote me where in the article he said there are more talented and experienced people in Canada....

He said there was talent in Canada at (at least) 4x that cost.

"Finding the right talent in Canada wasn’t difficult. That’s right, it was easy to find. Talent was plentiful. There were extremely intelligent and capable developers." -- He clearly says that there were plentiful dev's in Canada who were extremely intelligent. I think you are confused, 'more' here means quantity and not quality, although the latter was also plentiful.

75k is not an entry-level/recent grad salary.

Four years ago my intern went to Amazon after graduation for $86k and his degree was from SFSU, which is not a CS powerhouse. I believe entry level salaries have gotten higher since then...

Entry level in LA for _good_ engineers is generally above 90K, and Los Angeles has a lower cost-of-living than Toronto. This article just confirms what many of us already know, outside of SF/Austin/LA/NYC, software developers aren't recognized for their value and are seen as an expense.

$75k in Toronto & $75k in SF are very different things. One could live in Toronto in a 2br apartment for $500-750 a month.

I think your rental prices are a little off. Have you looked for a place in TO recently?

I thought it was a little low, too.

Let me get this straight. You're saying that you're entitled to a salary that is substantially higher than developers with more experience (and likely more skill), and you're the one who feels insulted? Give me a break.

Hey, if you win the birth lotto, you have a RIGHT TO MAKE MORE. Those other developers should have been born in a better country.

I'm not saying I deserve more on a personal basis. I am saying the tone of the article implied the author expected recent graduates to work for much less than 75k.

Outsourcing is nothing new and I am completely aware of the effect it is having on the software industry here in Canada and in the US. The author could just assume responsibility for his business strategy and not try to put the blame on CS/Software Eng. grads who often rack up solid amounts of debt to put themselves through school.

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