51–60 of 304 posts
"Toronto is already home to a number of successful venture-backed businesses, such as Shopify, KIK, ..." Fact check time. Shopify's headquarters is in Ottawa. Kik is in Waterloo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did. Toronto is a great city. I've traveled a good deal in Canada, and the US, and while I can't compare it to cities outside of those two, I will say that I still consider the best city I've ever experienced. While the tech scene isn't as hot as the other regions you mentioned, it's still strong. Very strong. It's also starting to be noticed by the bigger players (with Google and Apple both investing in the region…
How difficult is it for a U.S. citizen to relocate and start working there? Healthcare is only for Canadians, correct?
Government-funded healthcare (OHIP in Ontario) is extended to all residents. There is a three-month waiting period for it to kick in unless you are in one of several special groups, which you probably wouldn't be.
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/publications/ohip/ohip... http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ohip/ohipfaq_...
"Toronto is already home to a number of successful venture-backed businesses, such as Shopify, KIK, ..." Fact check time. Shopify's headquarters is in Ottawa. Kik is in Waterloo.
Don't know about KIK, but Shopify has a large development office in Toronto near King and Spadina.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is harder about Canadian immigration? I'd always had the impression the U.S. made things more difficult.
I'm Australian. We have a special visa, the E3, which is very easy to get. Meanwhile almost everyone else is stuck in the H1B shitshow, which has in the past 5 years grown from merely "terrible" to "nuclear-powered self-propelling toxic thunderblob".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Australian. We have a special visa, the E3, which is very easy to get. Meanwhile almost everyone else is stuck in the H1B shitshow, which has in the past 5 years grown from merely "terrible" to "nuclear-powered self-propelling toxic thunderblob".
I've been curious if the US has a reciprocal visa with Australia? I'm a USian who has a deep affection for Melbourne.
Eeh ... as a Torontonian developer I don't buy it. Most of the good graduates we have move to Bay Area or Seattle. If you want your career to progress meaningfully you pretty much have to move to the states. Maybe this might change in the future but the story on the ground is very different. Also nitpick - we are the fourth most populous city in North America, and only Mexico City , New York and Los Angeles have a la…
Toronto is the seventh largest metro area in North America. 2/3 the size of Chicago. About the same size as Washington and Philadelphia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metro...
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Who is going to move to Toronto to join the tech scene? If given the choice who is going to choose Toronto over Bay Area or Seattle? Without it having a massive draw it won't even register compared to Bay Area or even Seattle.
Eeh ... as a Torontonian developer I don't buy it. Most of the good graduates we have move to Bay Area or Seattle. If you want your career to progress meaningfully you pretty much have to move to the states. Maybe this might change in the future but the story on the ground is very different. Also nitpick - we are the fourth most populous city in North America, and only Mexico City , New York and Los Angeles have a la…
Ultimately if Toronto wants to be the best they will pay the best (adjusted for cost of living). They're best bet is that the bay cost of living becomes so unbearable that they can be competitive in take-home dollars. As it is, the money for developers is in the bay by a huge margin.
One consideration that offsets that is medical insurance. If your health care is not fully covered by your employer.
I ran some numbers once and the "rent difference" was roughly $3k (typical 1 - 2 bedroom apartment at $4k vs. The roughly $1k I spend) and the platinum medical looking like roughly $500/mo
Add in a car, ($0 in Toronto, $1000 in The bay w/ parking, insurance, gas & the vehicle)
All said and done, $55k appears to make the cost of living difference "break-even"
If I'm on roughly $100k in Toronto, $155k would be even. Now that doesn't adjust for exchange rate, so you might get ~20% play there. Maybe the $135k median I've read about is roughly on target in terms of total food cost, etc...)
I think there'd be some cachet to having a "big five" employer on your resume, so a year or two in one of the mega-shops would add value to future earnings if you started looking elsewhere, or a handful of other unicorn-class names might have a similar impact.
All in all, I'm not convinced that taking a San Fran gig would necessarily feel like streets paved with gold and scooping up baskets of money (which grows on trees), so much as it'd be a nice, sunny, ultra-nerdy town in the heart of movin' & shakin'
Incidentally, if anyone would like to disabuse me of any errors in my napkin math, I would welcome it. I'd love to get a more realistic idea of the difference.
"Toronto is already home to a number of successful venture-backed businesses, such as Shopify, KIK, ..." Fact check time. Shopify's headquarters is in Ottawa. Kik is in Waterloo.
Waterloo is arguably part of greater Toronto. The local commuter service (Go Transit) reaches all the way to Kitchener-Waterloo. I say "arguably" because it's a two-hour train ride each way, which is pretty brutal.