Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

blog.brainstation.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 134 posts

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#51

Post by TomMarius »

adriand wrote: post #50
kirbypineapple wrote: post #13

The wages in Toronto are laughable. In the praries it's possible to make maybe 10 to 20k less than Toronto salaries but the houses are half the price.

These conversations, which appear every time a post appears on HN that talks about what a great place Toronto is (along with many other places in Canada), make me sad. There is so much more to life than money.

There definitely is, but at the same time, you need money to have a comfortable life for you, your parents, your partner and your children (and then their children).

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#52

Post by jgh »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #37
thinkingkong wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a Canada wide problem. Rather, Id even say its a !valley problem. Canadian businesses keep making this weird assumption that theres some kind of market capture but it’s really only true for people who have to stay in the city or country for some reason. The addressable hirable market is the people who chose / have to stay and havent realized being employed by a US business is as easy as switching github organ…

I do think it reflects more of a "not US" than a "not Silicon Valley/Seattle" problem these days. Anecdotally, I've discovered that most sufficiently large companies in the US now recognize and will credibly attempt to compete with the stratospheric Silicon Valley wages for the upper echelons of tech talent no matter where the company is located. For example, I've seen many cases of the Fortune 500, most of which are…

> offering the upper end of the six-figure range for an individual contributor with exceptional skills

how does one find companies with this sort of pay scale? (edit: maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "upper end")

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#53

Post by TomMarius »

acchow wrote: post #38
ninjakeyboard wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wages in toronto have skyrocketed in the last couple years. I'm looking for functional programming people if you're interested I can pay at least $120k/year and offer considerable equity to work on realtime systems. We're profitable and not funded. We have a couple seats to fill and I'm having a hard time because people in Scala circles are expecting $150k/year in Toronto. Many of my peers are making $150k no pro…

It sounds like you are fully aware that you should raise compensation. Why don't you?

Maybe the "not funded" part?

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#54

Post by jgh »

adriand wrote: post #50
kirbypineapple wrote: post #13

The wages in Toronto are laughable. In the praries it's possible to make maybe 10 to 20k less than Toronto salaries but the houses are half the price.

These conversations, which appear every time a post appears on HN that talks about what a great place Toronto is (along with many other places in Canada), make me sad. There is so much more to life than money.

Sure but Toronto is expensive and they pay isn't very good considering. If it were people lamenting only being paid $300k instead of $400k then we could be like "it's just money!" but I heard when I was there a few months back CAD$120k is pretty typical for a senior dev, which is roughly $90k USD, and the housing and whatnot isn't all that much cheaper than in big US cities.

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#55

Post by raverbashing »

jbarham wrote: post #35
Apocryphon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Montréal?

Do you know French and love winter?

You can do without French but then again if you're living there make an effort

Winter is worse than Toronto but not by much (and Ottawa winters seem worse than both, to the point a whole canal freezes)

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#57

Post by raverbashing »

No, Toronto isn't a "Global tech leader"

A lot of startups, but a significant amount seem very "gimmicky". (Probably less than SV, but it seems there are less companies that "started up" then grew to a significant size). That or you can work for the Megacorps, usually in the suburbs in their lifeless campuses.

Not to mention the salaries.

Also Canada tech companies in general seems to use less open source than USA or Europe.

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#58

Post by helpme420 »

raverbashing wrote: post #57

No, Toronto isn't a "Global tech leader" A lot of startups, but a significant amount seem very "gimmicky". (Probably less than SV, but it seems there are less companies that "started up" then grew to a significant size). That or you can work for the Megacorps, usually in the suburbs in their lifeless campuses. Not to mention the salaries. Also Canada tech companies in general seems to use less open source than USA or…

Toronto is proof that government money does give rise to impactful startups that change the world.

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#59

Post by paulie_a »

abrichr wrote: post #44
paulie_a wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not familiar with Toronto personally but it would have one huge benefit over silicon valley...you don't have to live in silicon valley. Edit: I'd prefer Siberia over sv, there is a reason talented people are getting the hell out of there and many major companies are building huge offices elsewhere.

What is the reason?

Cost of living/lack of decent housing, low quality transportation and quite frankly the snobbery of SV to name a few.

Re: Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

#60

Post by nasalgoat »

jgh wrote: post #54
adriand wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations, which appear every time a post appears on HN that talks about what a great place Toronto is (along with many other places in Canada), make me sad. There is so much more to life than money.

Sure but Toronto is expensive and they pay isn't very good considering. If it were people lamenting only being paid $300k instead of $400k then we could be like "it's just money!" but I heard when I was there a few months back CAD$120k is pretty typical for a senior dev, which is roughly $90k USD, and the housing and whatnot isn't all that much cheaper than in big US cities.

I would go as far to say that $120K is exceptionally high for a senior dev and in fact $100K is an upper boundary.
Post reply on HN