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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

#351

Post by akshat_h »

whack wrote: post #237
ng12 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who are hesitant to move to USA because of immigration restrictions. Where does this perception come from? Canada has stricter immigration rules than the USA. EDIT: Specifically what I'm talking about is that Canada only allows in immigrants who are economically desirable and speak English or French.

Given the current H1B lottery, even someone with excellent credentials will most likely be denied the visa, purely due to random chance. Also, even if you get the H1B and apply for Permanent Residency, the wait time can be obscenely long depending on where you were born. If you were born in China, you'll have to wait for 6+ years. If you were born in India, you'll have to wait for 12+ years. Ironically enough, if you…

To add to the above post. For people born in India the wait time is estimated to be more than 20+ years, since the queue is going to get longer and longer, and there are only fixed number of people who leave the queue every year. Unless you are on EB1, it is better to basically forget about getting a green card. Talking to my friends from India, the options are:

1) Do a PhD and hope to produce original, well cited research that qualifies you for EB1.

2)Similar to above, but if you are in a research team and can get good papers out that qualify you for EB1.

3)Wait and hope for promotions that qualify you for EB1.

4)Move back to India after a couple of years.

5)Try to move to Europe or Canada. Everyone is kinda fuzzy on this since no one really has clear idea of immigration laws in other countries.

6)Get enough money from some IPO to pay for investment based green card and hope for the best.

This is if you currently qualify for EB2 i.e 5 or more years experience or a Masters from US. I don't even know what is the condition for people in EB3. As one of my friend put it memorably, there is a person whose parent's haven't even met, that will get a green card faster than me, if born anywhere but India, China, Mexico and Philippines.

I know, barring a recession, I'll be in US for the next couple of years, but after getting a family, I think my tolerance for having my residence in the country coupled with my job would drop and I'll look and see if one of the above option works for me. Plus ageism in tech is something I fear as well.

I would love to settle here, but barring a law change, it is right now impossible for me.

EDIT: Separate line numbers for the numbers points.

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

#353

Post by ahelwer »

ryanobjc wrote: post #155
_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…

The liberalness of Canada is overhyped. The reality is Canada is deeply conservative. It's possible to have universal health care and be conservative, that's only a oxymoron in the US. To quote this excellent article[1]: "the default setting of the Canadian male: a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might ro…

Honestly I gotta agree with you here, bud. When I was growing up in Canada I had to keep my dreams a secret. If you had any grand goals people thought you were an egomaniacal weirdo. It wasn't until I seriously dated someone here in the US that I realized the difference: as part of the "delving into each others' inner lives" phase of the early relationship, I sheepishly admitted I had dreams of doing some pretty big things. I was greeted with an eye-roll and her saying "everyone wants to do something like that".

Here in the USA it's normal for everyone to have big dreams, and weird if they don't. I think I like it.

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

#354

Post by briandear »

_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.

Legal cannibis is absolutely a conservative opinion in the US. Most conservatives want government to just leave us alone.

Republican authored bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/975/

And Diane Feinstein opposed California’s 2016 legalization.

It’s ridiculous to suggest Democrats are more likely to legalize than Republicans because the facts don’t really support that. It’s much less of an obvious partisan issue. Remember, Democrats controlled the house, senate and White House in 2009-2011 and not a single legalization bill even made it to the floor.

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

#355

Post by rconti »

fusiongyro wrote: post #251
r-s wrote: post #166

Canadian tech worker here. Base salary is 120k CAD in Calgary which is far above market rate but I am educated, experienced etc. That is 93k USD. I am looking to move to the USA because of higher salaries, but I am not 22 years old anymore and moving a family (with 2 earners) is no easy task. It falls on deaf ears though, 120k CAD is a good income, I can afford a house, cars, no debts etc so there is very little unde…

Get ready to spend a good deal of the difference in pay on healthcare.

It'll be almost entirely covered by your employer, and that number doesn't show up in the headline salaries they're looking at, anyway.

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

#356

Post by minwcnt5 »

pembrook wrote: post #270
badpun wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the tech industry is about burning through investors' money in search of new profitable ideas. I'm guessing there's much less investor money in Canada.

"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…

I have a hard time understanding the comparison of aggregate market cap (a valuation) to GDP (an annual output). These seem like two very different quantities, with different units. How do you intend for us to interpret that comparison? Wouldn't it make more sense to compare the aggregate revenues of those companies? (I'm not an economist, so I'm not sure those two quantities are comparable either, but they seem closer at least.)

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

#357

Post by rconti »

whack wrote: post #66

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 c…

I think they are.

Canada is importing talent from Hong Kong and Shanghai to work for American and Canadian companies, at salaries that are below market in US tech hubs, but appealing enough for those who wish to move to North America. At the same time, Canada is exporting talent to the US because of those same good-but-not-good-enough salaries.

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

#358

Post by Maven911 »

t1o5 wrote: post #243
Thaxll wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Other than Montreal's cheap cost of living and good public transportation, everything else is not so great. Talented engineers graduating from McGill and Concordia are leaving the province in droves because of Quebec's weird language laws [1], high taxes and obsolete immigration system. (Eg: KFC was renamed to PFK to comply with the language laws) MIDI, the immigration department of Quebec which has fully autonomy fo…

Yes having witnessed it myself, it's tragic the self inflicted wounds Montreal takes, while peoplr still pretend it's a tech hub (only in the tiniest of sense)

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

#359

Post by branchless »

t1o5 wrote: post #243
Thaxll wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Other than Montreal's cheap cost of living and good public transportation, everything else is not so great. Talented engineers graduating from McGill and Concordia are leaving the province in droves because of Quebec's weird language laws [1], high taxes and obsolete immigration system. (Eg: KFC was renamed to PFK to comply with the language laws) MIDI, the immigration department of Quebec which has fully autonomy fo…

The language laws thing is not a big deal. People just get on with it.

Montreal is great. I'm here, and if my kids don't go into IT they will work in another sector and will be able to afford to live.

I'd consider SV a death sentence. Who wants to work when you will never achieve financial independence because you'll never own your own land? And if you have a huge mortgage you are your boss's bitch forever.

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

#360

Post by vhodges »

ahelwer wrote: post #353
ryanobjc wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liberalness of Canada is overhyped. The reality is Canada is deeply conservative. It's possible to have universal health care and be conservative, that's only a oxymoron in the US. To quote this excellent article[1]: "the default setting of the Canadian male: a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might ro…

Honestly I gotta agree with you here, bud. When I was growing up in Canada I had to keep my dreams a secret. If you had any grand goals people thought you were an egomaniacal weirdo. It wasn't until I seriously dated someone here in the US that I realized the difference: as part of the "delving into each others' inner lives" phase of the early relationship, I sheepishly admitted I had dreams of doing some pretty big…

I agree there's more ambition/drive in the US (Just observed, never having worked there), but there's lots here too. People do start companies.

I think the bay area tends to do a lot more experimentation darwinian style, but I suspect it's because they can (more seed money/angels, etc)

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