Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by TulliusCicero » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

_xzxj wrote: post #183

digianarchist wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"The reality is Canada is deeply conservative." Agreed. Ontario is a few weeks away from voting in a conservative government with Doug Ford at the helm.

I think the conservativeness of Canada is a bit different from conservatives in the USA though. It's less focused on "morality" and religion and more an aversion to change. Which is why I think it's possible for the culture to be simultaneously conservative and OK with things like gay marriage and legal cannabis, neither of which would be conservative positions in the US.

Same thing in Germany.

In the political sense, Germany is more liberal than the US (especially economically), but there's this sort personal conservatism that manifests in paranoia about data/privacy, aversion/skepticism around change and technology and risk, less acceptance of weirdness. German culture just feels...rigid. It's stable and very functional, but also inflexible.

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

#332

Post by jt2190 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #306

_xzxj wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here (who lives outside of Canada but recently did a stint there for a bit) and this will sound negative but f-it. Canadian culture sucks when it comes to trying new things. Canada has some extra safety net but the culture is puritanical and conservative and nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something new and crazy. Not like Americans. Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody. The idea of…

Canadian here who worked in the Valley for ~7 years, and currently works for a US-based startup remotely. You're absolutely right that the culture of respecting changemakers is not as present in Canada. But the SFBA is the world leader here. There probably isn't any place on earth that's more optimistic about innovators. I don't think this is a culture thing, exactly. It's just that everyone who became rich in the SF…

> Investors in Canada just don't have that kind of money to play with.

The ecosystem [1] that provides dollars to high-risk investments (like tech startups) just doesn't exist on the same scale in Canada. The only players with that kind of money are the federal and provincial governments, which are by nature very conservative.

[1] For example, one source of funding is large pensions and endowments, who take a tiny percentage of their overall portfolio and put it into "high-risk" investments. The funds are so large that the tiny percentage amounts to millions and millions of dollars.

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

#333

Post by TulliusCicero » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #306

_xzxj wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here (who lives outside of Canada but recently did a stint there for a bit) and this will sound negative but f-it. Canadian culture sucks when it comes to trying new things. Canada has some extra safety net but the culture is puritanical and conservative and nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something new and crazy. Not like Americans. Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody. The idea of…

Canadian here who worked in the Valley for ~7 years, and currently works for a US-based startup remotely. You're absolutely right that the culture of respecting changemakers is not as present in Canada. But the SFBA is the world leader here. There probably isn't any place on earth that's more optimistic about innovators. I don't think this is a culture thing, exactly. It's just that everyone who became rich in the SF…

The US has a fairly high tolerance for weirdness and novelty in general because of its extreme fixation on individualism. Especially so when you compare it to most other high income countries like Japan, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, etc.

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

#334

Post by Bajeezus » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

mitjak wrote: post #149

I'm surprised at the lack of answers that suggest a positive opinion about working in Canada. I personally love the health care and other social benefits, the winters, the multi-cultural city (Toronto), the people, and the lack of gun ownership, among many other things. SV strikes me as a monoculture. I don't want to live at my workplace. The opportunities are fewer but there's also higher demand. My workplace has be…

Tech workers in Silicon Valley generally have very good health care. Winters in the Toronto area are horrible (I grew up in Western NY and would never dream of returning) and the climate in California is much more hospitable. San Francisco is a very diverse city if you stray outside the tech bubble. California isn't very gun friendly either, and gun control isn't exactly an issue that has a huge impact on where most people decide to live, either. I've loved every visit to Canada that I've ever made, but when you factor in the weather and lower pay, I would never live there.

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

#335

Post by thrywayhn » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

adiM wrote: post #325

thrywayhn wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The income disparity increases at senior levels. I hit a ceiling in Toronto where I hard trouble growing my career and making more than $180,000 CAD TC. Moving to silicon valley my experience was able to fetch over $500,00 USD TC. Sure it meant that for a year and a half my spouse can't work but that's not a big deal.

> Sure it meant that for a year and a half my spouse can't work Where does the year and a half come from? Green card processing delay? That can be 10+ years for approximately 50% of the world population (Indians + Chinese)

True, but we're talking about Canadian here.

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

#336

Post by speeq » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #227

josephjrobison wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda unrelated to immigration, but I've heard Canadian border patrol is actually more harsh than American border control. Anyone with experience that can verify?

(British passport.) Straightforward business trips for both countries for me, but Canada is a little more casual than average, but otherwise uninteresting. The officials smile, ask a straightforward question ("where are you staying?"), and stamp the passport ("enjoy your stay in Canada"). In the US, I feel like I'm being interrogated. "You don't look like a software developer" "who is paying for this trip?" and lots…

That's funny because I had the exact opposite experience. I think it just depends on the mood of the border officer.

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

#337

Post by graeme » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

Anyone know why Canadian salaries aren't adjusting upwards, or why more remote work isn't going to Canadians?

And what about startups like Shopify. Do they pay competitive wages? If not, how do they prevent their whole workforce leaving?

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

#338

Post by TulliusCicero » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #289

pembrook wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Burning through investors money in search of profitable ideas" has nothing to do with it. There's this huge misconception on HN about the size of the venture capital market. Start-ups are a miniscule portion of the tech economy by any measure of value. The reason engineers make so much money in the US is the public market giants like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, etc. The combined market cap of FAANG is…

FAANG can only hire so many engineers, the positions tend to be highly competitive, they pull them from all over the world, and the drop-off in compensation at the next level is pretty significant.

They have an anchoring effect.

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

#339

Post by jm__87 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

gao8a wrote: post #65

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.

Yes, if you are okay with forgoing benefits and vacation and know the hiring manager, then you can often double your take home (if they really need you, or you have a special skill set can ask for more obviously). Often contractors are hired through recruiters and I've heard of at least one recruiter taking an additional 50% on top of what was being paid to the contractor, which would result in the salary you can negotiate being much less, so not going through a recruiter makes this easier.

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

#340

Post by trhway » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

m0llusk wrote: post #328

trhway wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm yet to see a high-rise development resulting in cheaper housing, at least in US. No that i'm against it - i like it, when it is done right, for different reasons though. The housing prices are rising across the globe - one has to put somewhere all this money sloshing around. So, even to just stabilize the prices, one has to build faster than the money are printed - like Alice in Wonderland where you have to run f…

Replacing large swaths on single story single family houses with multiparty rentals does not necessarily involve any high rise buildings. Paris and Barcelona have proven that very high density can be achieved with four to six stories or less.

are you suggesting that Paris is [more] affordable for software engineers? Quick check shows that the prices in Paris are about E10K per square meter - basically SV prices while salaries as far as i know are significantly lower there.

I have only vague idea about Barcelona - quick check shows like it may be on the scale of E5K per square meter (it was $100K per 2-3 bdrm 20 years ago, so 3x-4x today seems reasonable) So you need to have like at least $60K salary - do they have that there?

Again, i'm not against high[er] density. I'm against it being suggested as the panacea for housing affordability crisis - as far as i see it looks like it may even worsen the crisis (at least for some less fortunate people - like relatively affordable low income communities being displaced by upscale new construction like we have happening everywhere in SV).

Please just show where higher density did help to alleviate the affordability crisis. I think even the massively empty apartments in all these massively constructed ghost towers in China aren't falling in prices.