Listen, I'm all for people looking out for themselves and getting out of Leaf Land, but to go through all that effort to end up in Cali! That's even worse!
Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
601–610 of 715 posts
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Canadian who has lived in the US for 1 year (in SF) I have a totally different take away. I noticed that people here are very hard working, almost as they are desperate for success, like if they fail or lost their job they would just die, poor and homeless and healthcare-less. I found that people in Canada were much more focused on happiness and were more willing to make sacrifices to improve their quality of li…
>> like if they fail or lost their job they would just die, poor and homeless and healthcare-less Because they could be very easily if they don't have a family safety net. I think that ultimately puts a damper on peoples' productive and creative ability as they tend to then focus more on keeping their job rather than being the most productive they can be for their employer.
> I think that ultimately puts a damper on peoples' productive and creative ability as they tend to then focus more on keeping their job rather than being the most productive they can be for their employer.
You could also look at it the other way. The lack of a safety net is like burning the bridges: it encourages you to be more productive and creative precisely because if you're not, then you've got nothing to fall back on.
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#603Some 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.
Not gonna happen in Toronto or Vancouver either.
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I've seen... If you consider stock options and bonuses, you could be making at least double that in the valley. Canadians getting a raw deal by comparison. Cost of living in Toronto is not half of that of the Bay Area. Most like 2/3rds.
What matters to me is how much I can bank at the end of the month. With that in mind I've been looking hard at Austin but I'd need a H1-B. I'm not willing to lose a quarter of my household income because my wife cannot work.
Same problem here. I have offers in the Bay Area but my girlfriend would not be TN visa eligible due to her line of work. Rock and a hard place...
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
>That's also why when people do tend to leave the Bay Area, they go to other liberal areas like Seattle/Portland/Boulder/Asheville/Austin/Boston/NYC, even though those areas also have housing crises and the cost of living is rapidly approaching the Bay Wow, that's true for all those cities? I might have guessed it for Boston and NYC, maybe Seattle too, not so much about the others. But don't know a lot about this are…
It's not a "crisis" in the way the Bay Area is, where there is barely any inventory even if you're a double-Googler household, 3BR homes on 1/4 acre go for $2.5M, and if you're a teacher or other non-tech job you're either living with roommates or have an hour and a half commute. However, Portland/Boulder/Denver/Austin have all seen large increases in house prices, driven largely by Californian housing wealth finding…
Got it now, thanks.
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
further restrict currently-legal immigration In fact, it was never-legal immigration that just was not enforced under the prior administration. The executive branch lacks those powers.
The policies I am referring to include the executive policies of the current administration on visa processing and the proposal of the current administration and it's legislative allies to reduce total legal immigration by cutting total visa alotments focussing on reductions in permitted family-based immigration, among others. These are either additional administrative barriers to or outright reductions in currently legal immigration.
This has nothing to do with debates over executive authority to choose how to prioritize enforcement and to make transparent commitments regarding that (which the executive clearly has in some cases, outside the obvious pardon power, since literally every grant of immunity from prosecution, or plea bargain to reduced charges, is an enforceable commitment by the executive not to enforce some law in some well-defined circumstance based on policy priorities.)
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#607Canada 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'm left wondering how important a company like Facebook really is to the US though.
I mean really, it creates about 10k high-paying tech jobs, okay... but Walmart employs 1 million. A lot of the support staff, e.g. in moderation, are distributed around the world.
Then it generates tons of revenues and profits for its shareholders, but FB is a public company, it could in theory be completely owned by non-Americans who profit off of the American company.
Then it provides a service to people around the world.
And then it has strategic value, but it appears it was misused by foreign powers to manipulate domestic elections, rather than furthering American interests.
FB does pay quite substantial federal taxes, far greater than it does in the rest of the world, you can't easily disregard that. The rest of the world is missing out on that, but that's also a question of the rest of the world not using its tax mandate fully.
It doesn't appear like Facebook is tremendously more important to the US than it is to the rest of the world. Of course brain drain is always an issue we should be concerned about, but one feature of publicly-owned digital companies is that their benefits aren't as restricted to their locality as traditional companies are.
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#608What percentage of those students aren't even nationals. I bet it's super high. Canada needs to incentivize not only its students to stay, but foreign students as well. The country has the potential for a large influx of highly technical immigrants.
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edited my post too late - it was light rail from Gish maybe to Ohlone/Chynoweth. Had to change at Santa Clara.
Yeah that's VTA. Not really used by professionals.
But why isn’t it used by professionals? It seemed clean enough, punctual and conveniently located as well as being reasonably priced. Is there an alternative (besides owning a car) that I’m missing for travelling around the conurbation of Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose et al.
Re: Canada facing ‘brain drain’ as tech talent leaves for Silicon Valley
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
Developers in Toronto are getting a raw deal. The cost of living is orders of magnitude higher than the rest of the country and devs aren't making the difference up with higher wages. So glad I made the decision to move from Toronto to Atlantic Canada this past year. I'm actually making more money in New Brunswick than I did in Toronto and can afford to own a 4 bedroom house instead of renting a 600 square foot condo…
I have been weighing making a move from Saskatchewan to New Brunswick. When I compare Regina to Fredericton (as an example) though, it seems like I must be missing something. On the surface, pay is generally better, the stacks/companies are more interesting, the location seems amazing, and comparable real estate is less than half. I know that Regina->NB is dramatically different from Toronto->NB, but is there anythin…
Don't leave! :D
It finally feels to me like things are on the cusp of getting interesting in Regina. Saskatoon's recent acquisitions (Solido bought by Mentor/Siemens, SkipTheDishes) seems to have raised a lot of eyebrows in Regina and there's at least some momentum building to get investors/business folks/tech folks together to start building things. Co-Labs in Saskatoon seems to have been a huge inspiration/wake-up call for parts of the Regina business community.
That being said... I've always had a bit of a longing for Atlantic Canada, and if the jobs are out there... that's pretty interesting!