Any hot tips on places to apply to for junior mobile developer positions in Montreal? I am graduating in a month from a college in Ottawa with a diploma in Mobile Application Design and Development and need to start gearing up to find a job. I have experience in Objective-C iOS, Android and Cordova and am wrapping up decently large native iOS game for a school client project.
Startups in Montréal
11–20 of 62 posts
Re: Startups in Montréal
#12I'd love to work remotely from Maine for a Montreal based company if I could visit HQ once in a while. ;) I love both Montreal and Quebec City, albeit for different reasons.
Re: Startups in Montréal
#13I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…
(quebecers here) Not language racism but english-phobia. Everyone that I know will switch to english to help people, but they expect that the reverse will be true too. You will be expected to at least attempt French. Attempting it will be enough and people will gladly help you out.
I lived in Montreal for 6 six years, as a student and for my first job. I speak a bit of French, but not much. One day in Place Ville Marie I was getting a coffee at Starbucks. I accidentally bumped into someone in line, and I said "sorry". He snarled at me angrily and said "Get out of here, go back to Toronto". I don't think I had never been to Toronto at that point in my life.
Mostly that does not happen. Mostly people are okay if you try to speak French. But if you slip up or bump the wrong person, your English can certainly make you the target of hateful and mean language.
There is also a forced, legal "racism" against language, in that it can be prohibitively difficult to start a company in English. There is a systematic approach where the government and the locals will make your life more expensive, more complicated and less likely to succeed unless you do fully understand French.
Edit: That said, I love Montreal. It's probably my favourite city in North America, I miss it tons and tons. I live in the Bay Area now, but feel like Montreal is my home and I can't wait to go back.
Re: Startups in Montréal
#14I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…
(quebecers here) Not language racism but english-phobia. Everyone that I know will switch to english to help people, but they expect that the reverse will be true too. You will be expected to at least attempt French. Attempting it will be enough and people will gladly help you out.
Quebecers are my favorite Canadians!
But there is definitely language racism, especially with the language laws.
Here are some examples to prove my point:
On a phone call with the government to renew an ID card, my bilingual Montrealler friend messed up her French grammar. The government agent said "I cannot understand you" and hung up the phone! Made her call back and wait on hold and be more careful with her grammar.
The Bitcoin Embassy put up a webpage for international Bitcoin trading targeted to people beyond Quebec who speak English, and yet the Language Police stopped them because they hadn't translated everything to French before publishing the page! The government prevents international business simply because it's not French enough. But the whole point of international business is to target OTHER people.
My friend is COO of a large, successful international enterprise software company (I won't mention the company). All his programmers use English keyboards, but his company will be shut down if they don't use French keyboards. So they keep a stash of French keyboards in the closet. Every few months, the Language Police do an inspection and they have to bring out the French keyboards and pretend that they are using them to do all their work as good French citizens.
This last friend has lived in BOTH Palo Alto and Montreal for the last 15 years, and before that lived in France and Iran. He says that Quebec is more Racist than France.
Re: Startups in Montréal
#15I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…
been here 3 years and don't recognise your issues at all, I found it a friendly place.
I'm sure they loved you thinking they move in herds and are sub-standard to US schools tho.
Re: Startups in Montréal
#16I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…
I find this is a culture that pervades most of Canada (with perhaps the exception of Waterloo). It's a culture that follows, not leads and innovates. We're all for pretending to be like Silicon Valley… but not trying anything new :)
Exactly! Like in Seattle: a culture of fitting in, rather than standing out.
Re: Startups in Montréal
#17That's great!! Montreal is the place to be. Open, not so expansive, with easy access to North American market and it's easy to recruit internationally. Only one real problem: the brain drain to the US And I'm not talking about subsidies or taxes because that's a similar problem everywhere.
I might add that the standard for both coffee and bars in Montreal is quite high, and also priced cheaper than the midwest. Montreal is truly a hidden gem.
ok that's enough now. ssssh.
Re: Startups in Montréal
#18I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…
[deleted]
Re: Startups in Montréal
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
(quebecers here) Not language racism but english-phobia. Everyone that I know will switch to english to help people, but they expect that the reverse will be true too. You will be expected to at least attempt French. Attempting it will be enough and people will gladly help you out.
Quebecers are my favorite Canadians! But there is definitely language racism, especially with the language laws. Here are some examples to prove my point: On a phone call with the government to renew an ID card, my bilingual Montrealler friend messed up her French grammar. The government agent said "I cannot understand you" and hung up the phone! Made her call back and wait on hold and be more careful with her gramma…
Of course there is racism, there is racism everywhere. The difference with Québec is that the racists are racist against wealthy white people who are not use to be on that side of the medal.
> So they keep a stash of French keyboards in the closet.
Here, even if we are french speaking, we simply stick french stickers on things. No need to buy extra products this way ;)
Re: Startups in Montréal
#20Any hot tips on places to apply to for junior mobile developer positions in Montreal? I am graduating in a month from a college in Ottawa with a diploma in Mobile Application Design and Development and need to start gearing up to find a job. I have experience in Objective-C iOS, Android and Cordova and am wrapping up decently large native iOS game for a school client project.
Gameloft? Not a startup, but they make games for mobile.
https://www.gamesjobsdirect.com/jobs/3963024/user-interface-...