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Developments in tech in Toronto over the past seven years

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

#81

Post by DKnoll »

refurb wrote: post #78
def8cefe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What? The Calgary-Edmonton corridor has the highest salaries in Canada and over 1M people in each city.

I didn't mention the marginally higher average wage (across all industries, not specifically IT, which does not average higher) or population of Calgary. For reference the Toronto metro area has a population of 6.4 million with the Calgary metro area having 1.3. If we're talking about the praries as a whole which the parent was, that also includes Winnipeg and Regina.

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

#82

Post by abledon »

devoply wrote: post #3
Apocryphon wrote: post #2

Is this truly significant, or is it spin to sell a city? Not to be harsh, but I've read the accounts of Canadian expats on the comparatively low wages back home. Not SF low, but low even compared to other cities in the U.S.

In Canada, salaries for tech seem to normally max out around 100k for developers (with exceptions for working for big US/multinational companies like Amazon, MSFT, etc.). Even 80k is pretty common for senior developers... In Canadian dollars. So around 80k USD is max a Canadian developer can expect to make other than a few unusual cases thrown in there which might go as high as 130k CAD so around 100k USD is a stella…

How easy is it for a Canadian to set up the legalities of doing remote in the trump era ? I have an impression it’s only the big fish (fang etc) who with their legions of lawyers can mow a path down for remotes to begin working smoothly (& legally)

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

#83

Post by Kpourdeilami »

alishan-l wrote: post #22
Kpourdeilami wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100k CAD is not really the max in Canada. That’s how much small startups are paying to hire developers with around 2 years of experience in Kitchener-Waterloo that tends to be cheaper than Toronto

Bit of an exaggeration. Show me any startup in Canada who'll pay $100k for two years of experience.

We just hired someone for around that amount and same level of experience last week and we're a small team of 3 so I assume companies bigger than us will pay more

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

#84

Post by qcpydev »

pards wrote: post #64

I've been living and working in Toronto since 2003, and can attest that it truly is a fantastic city to live in. Most of the senior developers I know in Toronto work as independent contractors for large enterprises because they can get paid significantly more than the base salaries mentioned here. Contractor rates rival Silicon Valley salaries. The downside of independent contracting is that you forgo sick pay, holid…

Hi, I'm a contractor in Québec City work as a Business analyst. Can you tell me what is the hourly rate in Toronto ? And how do you find your clients ? It's my first year of working as a contractor. Thanks.

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

#85

Post by apercu »

I see these posts a lot lately. I've worked in Chicago, Madison, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Des Moines, Hopewell New Jersey and Toronto.

A few points: A "senior" dev in Toronto would be someone with 8-10 years of experience. They can easily make 120+. I've hired many of them. Very few organizations in the GTA consider someone with 2-4 years a "senior", and those people will be lucky to make 90k. That make the COL in the GTA difficult.

If you truly are an amazing developer and you can't get a high salary in the GTA, get in touch.

Also, it would be interesting to see the ages of people who post. When I was in my 20's I'm sure I would have stayed in the Bay area if salaries were as good as they are now. But there really wasn't a _huge_ disparity in wages in the late 90's/Early 2000's between SV and elsewhere. I likely would have left the Bay area in my 30's though. And moving to Canada is one of the best decisions I feel I have ever made, especially considering the last 2 years.

EDIT: As a side note, I think outside of SV, ALL tech salaries (and all other industries)are too low and have been stagnant for the most part for a decade.

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

#86

Post by digianarchist »

Liru wrote: post #33
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…

Where are all the Elixir jobs at in Toronto? I can't seem to find any.

wxgames

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

#87

Post by tomsun »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #71
moltar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll do the spin: - Healthiest city in North America [1] - Montréal posts best job growth in 2017 among top 20 largest urban centers in Canada and the U.S. [2] - Lowest unemployment rate since 2001 [3] - Montréal is 2nd global artificial intelligence hub [4] [1] https://www.spotahome.com/healthiest-cities-world [2] http://www.montrealinternational.com/en/blog/montreal-posts-... [3] https://montrealgazette.com/busines…

I'm a Montreal, this is pure spin. The 'low unemployment' bit is funny considering how many underemployed, homeless and in betweens there are. I don't remotely buy it. The economy in Montreal is reasonable but soft. I guess compared to itself in 2001? The AI hub is correct for now, that might change.

I think if you can get a decent tech job and if you speak French. Montreal is definitely a better pick than Toronto.

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

#88

Post by apercu »

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.

Agreed. But it's gotten very expensive to live in the GTA and salaries need to reflect that.

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

#89

Post by apercu »

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.

It doesn't really make a lot of sense to compare currency conversions unless you are buying your raw materials in another currency. I'm not really that impacted on a day to day by the exchange rate, unless I'm in the US visiting family.

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

#90

Post by apercu »

nasalgoat wrote: post #60
jgh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As I mentioned elsewhere, it depends on what you consider a "senior" dev. A couple years of experience _does not_ make you a senior.

The upper boundary for an intermediate in Toronto is certainly $90-95k.

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