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

#361

Post by lhorie » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:15 PM UTC

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…

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

This is an interesting point. I feel like Canada does do this, but it sort of backfires on itself. Something my wife once pointed out is that a lot of immigrant tech talent in Canada is inherently risk averse by virtue of being primarily chinese and indian tech workers, whose cultures are heavily conservative cultures that tend to celebrate social status over risk-taking innovativeness

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

#362

Post by walshemj » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

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…

It is short sighted having one big player leads to spin offs to give a non tech examples from the UK.

Games workshop set up in Nottingham years ago there is now large number of spin off companies in the metal and plastic moulding - its even called the lead belt.

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

#363

Post by Clobbersmith » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #295

Some reasons to stay in Canada: * Your spouse will not be able to work on your visa (TN / H1B) * "Full insurance coverage" does not mean for your spouse. Be prepared to pay for a delivery if you want to have children * Your child will have much higher post-secondary student loans * Crime, Firearms et al. IMO coming to SV is a young/single person's game (hence braindrain from grads). But a bad idea for established peo…

You forgot being able to buy a house. If you're content with renting forever it's not an issue, but if you ever want to buy you'd better hope that both you and your partner work in tech.

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

#364

Post by eloff » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:19 PM UTC

xenihn wrote: post #313

eloff wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do remote work for this reason. Although I did manage to recently find a contractor position that pays competitively here in Canada, I find that very rarely. If you do remote contract work, mostly for US or Swiss companies, you can make 2-3x a top Canadian salary. Just throwing that out there as an alternative to moving to the US.

Can I ask what sector and languages/frameworks you use?

I do full-stack but focus mostly on backend. I work in any language, platform, or framework the job requires. There aren't that many remote jobs, so being flexible on the technology side helps me get the best. I find Go to be very much in demand right now. C++ is making something of a comeback ever since C++11.

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

#365

Post by eloff » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

rlabrecque wrote: post #348

xenihn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask what sector and languages/frameworks you use?

Not the person you're responding to, but C++ for me. I make a normal Seattle salary while living in Toronto. Which after conversion seems to put me higher than people with 3x my experience in much better paying sectors than I'm in... It's stupid, and it sucks, I wish my company was local, I don't prefer remote. I do much prefer making literally double than I'd make locally though. :/

I hear you, I don't really like remote either. I go to local programming meetups to get some of the socializing I miss out on with colleagues. But at the difference in income, I can't justify doing it any other way.

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

#366

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:21 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #293

dragonwriter wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the groupthink is that the USA is hostile to immigrants. Which doesn't explain all the immigrants (legal and otherwise). I don't know what groupthink you are talking about, but there is a wife perception that the US has recently become hostile toward immigrants. Which is reflected not only in fuzzy attitudes, but concrete policy, and it does explain changes in immigration, both legal and otherwise. > There's al…

> That's what they usually say, but they also usually oppose policy which would make legal immigration easier and relieve pressure that creates illegal immigration, and frequently support policies to restrict legal immigration. And it's not just 10% of conservatives supporting this kind of policy. Look, I'm a liberal but I will call out the Dems when I need to. Most of the reforms to legal immigration have always bee…

> Democrats haven't proposed a bill which purely targets legal immigration.

Perhaps, but conservatives have frequently put forward bills (or, when in the executive, instituted executive policy without Congressional action) that further restrict currently-legal immigration and non-immigrant entry and privileges, which is more significant sign of opposition to legal immigration than merely voting against expansions to legal immigration, whether pure or not.

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

#367

Post by rconti » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:21 PM UTC

estebank wrote: post #291

Eridrus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the social services provided (universal healthcare, etc). I think the individual value of most social services is pretty low to people in this demographic (recent graduates taking software jobs in the US). Sure, universal healthcare is great, but US companies also provide health insurance.

That demographic you're referring to is no less likely to be involved in traffic accidents that can send you to the closest available hospital. In the US that means an ambulance bill and very likely a hospital bill that your insurance might not cover, and the high possibility of chronic pain that's not necessarily covered by your health insurance. And that's even before having to deal with lawyers in order to obtain…

Give me a break. Healthcare in the US is a joke, but if you're on an engineer's salary and benefits plan, you're probably paying nothing for any of these things.

Protip: "treble damages" is not a thing California invented in order to pay legal fees

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

#368

Post by maerF0x0 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:25 PM UTC

thrywayhn wrote: post #301

maerF0x0 wrote: post #295

Some reasons to stay in Canada: * Your spouse will not be able to work on your visa (TN / H1B) * "Full insurance coverage" does not mean for your spouse. Be prepared to pay for a delivery if you want to have children * Your child will have much higher post-secondary student loans * Crime, Firearms et al. IMO coming to SV is a young/single person's game (hence braindrain from grads). But a bad idea for established peo…

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.

> able to fetch over $500,00 USD

By far this not the case. Most will be around 1/3rd that (according to the salary reports i've read) .

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

#369

Post by briandear » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:25 PM UTC

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…

H1B isn’t an immigrant visa, so of course the wait times are long — it’s the wrong visa for immigration.

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

#370

Post by refurb » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:25 PM UTC

ixacto wrote: post #261

refurb wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income taxes BC CA are pretty similar, but other taxes aren't. Gas is the equivalent of $6/gal in Canada right now (due to taxes), sales tax is 12% and a lot of products (electronics, etc) are just generally more expensive in Canada.

Seattle is trying hard to catch up. 10.1% sales tax + just under 50% liquor tax.

No state income tax though!