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Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

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Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#61

Post by throwawaycan420 »

flyingramen wrote: post #57
noam87 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way those numbers are right. At least not in Toronto. I'm a back end dev with under 5 years experience and you couldn't get me to set the clock on your microwave for $53k.

For my benefit, would you be willing to share your salary or range (and currency :)?

I'm not the grandparent post, but, my salary in Canada was $80K starting in 2000, and is up to $160K now.

I've been making more than double the median wage in my city for the last 20 years or so.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#62

Post by brunoc »

flyingramen wrote: post #57
noam87 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way those numbers are right. At least not in Toronto. I'm a back end dev with under 5 years experience and you couldn't get me to set the clock on your microwave for $53k.

For my benefit, would you be willing to share your salary or range (and currency :)?

We hire a lot in Montreal. Mid-size startup. Range is more like CAD 85-140k for generalist frontend and backend developers.

In the larger cities, salaries have really gone up in the last few years.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#63

Post by brunoc »

breitling wrote: post #46
TP4Cornholio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe it's so low. I hope Canadians aren't asked to put in overtime at those wages.

You better believe it. Overtime is expected.

Maybe where you work. Not expected everywhere at all.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#64

Post by eloff »

hughes wrote: post #27

This article doesn't mention one of the major reasons for talent leaving Canada: if you work there, you need to stomach a 50% pay cut in average salaries vs the US. This is true pretty much across the board regardless of tech niche on the 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey[1]: Machine learning specialist: US 108k, Canada 53k (49%) Embedded applications/devices developer: US 100k, Canada 53k (53%) Systems administra…

Yes, that more or less sums it up. Plus you have fewer job opportunities and career mobility as well as higher taxes and rapidly rising real-estate prices in both Vancouver and Toronto. I think Canadian software engineers are crazy to stay in Canada.

I'm a Canadian software engineer living in Canada, but I'd never consider working for a Canadian or US company here and earning Canadian dollars - it just makes no sense. I work remote only (these days only part-time.) It isn't such a great deal as it used to be for me now that I have to pay Canadian taxes, but it was bloody fantastic when I used to live in Panama and legally paid no tax of any kind other than 7% sales tax.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#65

Post by acchow »

adventured wrote: post #56
guyzero wrote: post #14

It makes me feel proud that Canada has been North America’s up-and-coming startup center since I graduated from Waterloo over 20 years ago. That's a solid, consistent track record of almost being there.

There has been a story equivalent to that on the front page every few weeks for the last five years that I've been reading HN. I attribute it to some kind of watch-goliath-fall fantasy. That has been amplified dramatically since Trump got elected. Since then, a couple dozen countries are now supposedly candidates to swipe a lot of tech talent away from the US. Nothing will come of it; even more high-skilled talent wi…

Cities that are commonly touted as the "next silicon valley":

- Berlin

- Toronto-Waterloo

- London

- Vancouver

- Shenzhen

- Chicago

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#66

Post by soggypopsicle »

endorphone wrote: post #35
hughes wrote: post #27

This article doesn't mention one of the major reasons for talent leaving Canada: if you work there, you need to stomach a 50% pay cut in average salaries vs the US. This is true pretty much across the board regardless of tech niche on the 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey[1]: Machine learning specialist: US 108k, Canada 53k (49%) Embedded applications/devices developer: US 100k, Canada 53k (53%) Systems administra…

While I do have a grievance with a much lower pay ceiling across Canada, those numbers are ridiculously low even if in US dollars as I assume they are. I don't put much stock in the StackOverflow survey. And I'm not trying to be argumentative, but your take on TN visas is extremely simplified. For instance software developers aren't actually allowed to have a TN visa, and instead you have to say that you're a "system…

I moved from Toronto To SF last year on a TN-Visa and the process was as described above. My salary doubled as well.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#67

Post by rrdharan »

ilugaslifg wrote: post #31

Vancouver: where senior developers would be genuinely lucky to top out at $90k, a single bedroom on a transit line is $800k, a teardown in a distant suburb is $1.5M, and bottom shelf cheese costs $40/lb. I don't think a startup scene in a city is ever going to really blow up when sticking around in that city is giving up the possibility of building any kind of future for yourself. Everybody I know who's worth half a…

I grew up in Toronto and have visited Montreal numerous times but only as a tourist.

At any rate I'm very skeptical of the Montreal claims. It is a wonderful place to visit, but all of my Canadian non-native French speaking friends eventually found that their career opportunities were limited and the culture was simply too hostile to non-Quebecois and so they relocated away.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#68

Post by mikestew »

endorphone wrote: post #35
hughes wrote: post #27

This article doesn't mention one of the major reasons for talent leaving Canada: if you work there, you need to stomach a 50% pay cut in average salaries vs the US. This is true pretty much across the board regardless of tech niche on the 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey[1]: Machine learning specialist: US 108k, Canada 53k (49%) Embedded applications/devices developer: US 100k, Canada 53k (53%) Systems administra…

While I do have a grievance with a much lower pay ceiling across Canada, those numbers are ridiculously low even if in US dollars as I assume they are. I don't put much stock in the StackOverflow survey. And I'm not trying to be argumentative, but your take on TN visas is extremely simplified. For instance software developers aren't actually allowed to have a TN visa, and instead you have to say that you're a "system…

those numbers are ridiculously low even if in US dollars as I assume they are. I don't put much stock in the StackOverflow survey.

Then put stock in a the words of a guy who has actually looked for employment in Canada, and after the election of Trump is very incentivized to take a positive view on moving to Canada: as far as I can tell from the salaries posted, I'd take about a 50% pay cut, and I wouldn't be able to afford a house (at least not in Vancouver). Drop me in, say, Kamloops for $65K/year and maybe I'd do it. But there are few, if any, software jobs in Kamloops, or Kelowna, or much anywhere else outside Vancouver.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#69

Post by bobosha »

I speak as a founder of an AI company in Vancouver Canada and ran it there for ~1 year - we relocated to US for fundraising and that's another story - but here is my sense for salaries:

* AI/ML Scientists (UBC, SFU) , Typically MS/PhD: C$85K-125K

* Web developers: ranges from 60K (mediocre) to 110K (very good), the exceptional are nearly impossible to find.

* Database/Backend : C$80K-100K for the good to very good talent.

I would expect Toronto to have similar salary ranges, Waterloo and Montreal might be a bit lower.

Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center

#70

Post by jostmey »

So basically because the cost of living in San Francisco is scary, everyone is looking for the next start-up center and assuming it will be somewhere outside the United States. But there are many other cheap places to live in the US, much cheaper than Canada. I guess the current political climate in the US could be a driving factor.
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