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Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

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Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#61

Post by otempomores »

Kelbit wrote: post #13

If Canadian companies were willing to offer a competitive salary, maybe Canadian grads would stay. It doesn't even have to be 1:1 with the US, even 75% would be nice. As it is, there is little incentive to stay here. I know a new grad who was faced with the choice of staying in Canada to earn $40-50k CAD per year starting, or heading to the US where he had a job offer with one of the big five for $120k USD plus signi…

Same here in Germany. Talent usually goes to Switzerland or California. The problem is that management in these companies consider the defunct state of affairs normal. Usually they just consider software just as a external service sadly demanded by the customer.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#62

Post by rbanffy »

fbernier wrote: post #42
huangc10 wrote: post #9

Canadian working in SV for almost a decade here. Yeah sure, it was about the technology, job, but a lot of it has to do with lifestyle (which the article fails to mention, and can't really be measured). Since I've been here, I've learned how to drive stick shift, sky dived, and been on way more adventure than what I could have if I stayed at home. It's about adventure and taking a risk. Not necessarily about the mone…

> I've learned how to drive stick shift It's a well known fact that the amazing opportunity of learning to drive stick shift is something you can't do in Canada. Luckily the US are there for that!

You haven't driven stick shift until you have driven stick shift in Europe. Extra points if you change gears with the left hand.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#63

Post by turingcompeteme »

Me and most of my engineering friends faced this decision 5 years ago. We all had to decide between offers from one of the big 5, or remaining in the Toronto-Waterloo region. I'm the only one who stayed. And that's only because I was presented with a really interesting opportunity not available to most.

I can only speak to the University of Waterloo, but there was this idea that the only goal worth perusing was a cali job. 'Cali or Bust' was one of those sayings that was said jokingly, but you know, people were also kind of serious about it. Even really great paying jobs in Toronto or Waterloo are not as desirable as the exact same position out west.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#64

Post by [deleted] »

martinshen wrote: post #25

I recently moved back from the US (SF then Detroit) to Toronto to start a new startup. I was shocked when some entrepreneurs were upset that an Amazon HQ2 may raise the prices on engineering talent in Toronto. That may be true but is extremely short-sighted (and probably means those startups aren't VC-ambitious). The Toronto area really needs Amazon, Google or another large tech company to create a signifiant enginee…

[deleted]

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#65

Post by gao8a »

Something I didn't know until recently is how much better the wages are for Canadians that work as contractors to large companies/banks that bill to their own companies. I understand that this is probably out of reach to younger folks with no experience but finally realized the appeal of a contractor here.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#66

Post by whack »

Canada is in a really tough spot here. I've always admired Canadian culture/values, and in the abstract, would love to live in Canada one day. However, as a Software developer, the compensation and opportunities that one can find in SF/Seattle/NYC dwarf anything in Canada. Until this changes, Canada is always going to lose its brightest engineers, which will in turn worsen the problem even further.

Some solutions I can think of, which might help:

- Aggressively pursue the brightest non-American engineers, who are hesitant to move to USA because of immigration restrictions.

- Offer very lucrative perks to the major software companies, to expand their engineering presence in Canada. Yes, it stinks having to offer tax-breaks, but at least it will help build initial momentum.

- Aggressively encourage/fund/facilitate startups. Unlike salaried employees, startups aren't turned off by the low-engineering-wages. Once Canada can grow 5-10 startups into major established companies with Canadian HQs, that will really boost the local engineering ecosystem and job market.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#67

Post by Thaxll »

mywittyname wrote: post #51
m-p-3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering how that salary difference really is when comparing the cost of living of many Canadian cities vs Silicon Valley, the taxation rate and the social services provided (universal healthcare, etc).

The big tech hubs in CA (Toronto, Vancouver) are expensive and traffic is absolutely awful. A quick glance online shows average apartment prices are nearly $2000/mo. So it's almost like you're living in Seattle anyway. I don't think CA has many technical equivalents to Ohama or Columbus that combine high salaries from numerous F500 companies with Midwestern COL.

Isn't Montreal bigger than Vancouver? Also Montreal is cheap to live in.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#68

Post by _mhyx »

jessriedel wrote: post #26
paulashbourne wrote: post #2

65.93% of Software Engineering graduates end up working in the US after graduation. Not a great statistic for Canada's tech industry.

I think something even stronger would be true if you asked about non-CA US states. Why would Canada, at 1/10th the US population, have more of an independent tech locus than does Texas (which has a population comparable to Canada)? Is this just a difference of nations re-distributing wealth internally but not between nations?

Austin is a huge tech town, and rapidly growing. I get a lot of recruiter emails to go there. Same with KC, but to a lessor extent.

I was just in Montreal - the difference in prices with the US was staggering. You forget how wealthy we are, sometimes, even compared to the rest of the developed world. (Had an incredible French meal with 2 bottles of wine over 3 hours and it came out to ~$90 a head American)

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#69

Post by bluGill »

ahelwer wrote: post #53

I'm a Canadian software engineer working in Seattle. One time on a flight back to the homeland I sat next to a Canadian tech VC. We spoke about the tech scene in Canada, and eventually she started complaining about how all the good engineers leave for the States. I mentioned my experience with the massive 50% pay gap in software engineer salaries, and she said something about how it was the fault of the exchange rate…

They don't actually want tech talent, they want CHEAP tech talent.

Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley

#70

Post by jasondc »

Maybe it's not only the money. In Silicon Valley, engineers are treated like stars, not sent to the basement with the worst office. In most cities, the business leaders run the show, and treat engineers as a commodity, to be added or disposed of when needed: "let's go faster by adding more engineers, who cares about the talent level, what's the difference".
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