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Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

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Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#71

Post by drivebycomment »

gyulai wrote: post #66
qeqeqeqe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is opening 5000 new jobs in Canada a sign that Google is "extremely centralized"? In regards to your Munich example, what exactly is the issue with that? If there's a large amount of talent in some area why wouldn't you want to try and compete for it? Anyway, I have a good feeling that office will grow soon, there's plenty of non-hardware and chip design talent in that area :) You do have to start somewhere thoug…

5000 new jobs is not what the article is saying, but capacity to grow to 5000. I don't know how many they have now, and creating capacity to do something is not the same as actually doing it. Also, to put the number in perspective: 5000 would be only 4.3% of their global workforce, and my guess would be that Canada must actually be one of their biggest non-U.S. presences. (London also has a strong one for Google). I'…

> we're not seeing enough of it right now to contradict the notion that these companies are still very much centralized.

What are you basing this on, and what would be enough ?

4.3%, if indeed happens that way, would be a substantial portion. They already have significant presence in NYC, Seattle/Kirkland, London, Zurich, LA, Hyderabad, Dublin, Tokyo, Austin, etc. A few thousand here and a few thousand there add up quickly.

EDIT: Added a few more that I remembered.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#72

Post by smnrchrds »

yellowait44 wrote: post #52
52-6F-62 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t pay 50% in tax... Even at the higher income scales

Federal higher income bracket is not 50% but you have to factor the province as well so yeah well above 50% in Quebec for instance.

I mean, you are technically correct. If you earn more than approximately 800k in Quebec, you would pay about 50% of your income in taxes. But how many people earn remotely that much? Is this really a concern for us mere mortals?

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#73

Post by seanmcdirmid »

raverbashing wrote: post #61
buzzkillington wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senior roles in SF/NY pay >600k in total comp. I was flat out told there are no such jobs in Canada two years back. Has that changed?

Yes but not everybody can get to this level of compensation even in SF If you can grow, you'll grow pretty much everywhere I know the 600k sound tempting but it's not like it doesn't have any strings attached. Getting paid, let's say 200k USD in Canada, might get you closer to owning your home than the 600k in SF

No, $600k in SF is better than $200k in Canada in probably all circumstances. As long as your housing costs don’t scale with your income, you are already winning with an extra $100k of comp per year. That isn’t even considering that lots of things are more expensive in Canada, taxes are a bit higher, and Vancouver and Toronto aren’t cheap.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#74

Post by gyulai »

ulfw wrote: post #69
gyulai wrote: post #53

...we've been having these kinds of headlines from local media outlets pretty much everywhere where FAANG have created/expanded presences. -- But it seems to me that these companies are extremely centralized and only decentralize to the extent that it is unavoidable (e.g. distributed data centers for reasons of latency) or that it captures special opportunities (e.g. Apple expanding in Munich right now, but doing onl…

Competitors like Infineon? They bought Infineon (through intels purchase of Infineons mobile chip assets years ago)

Infineon is a publicly-traded company. A part of Infineon was sold to Intel, who in turn sold a part of that to Apple. Anyway: The long-standing presence of Infineon and a whole ecosystem around it (business partners, educational opportunity, etc.) means that Munich has hardware talent, and despite Munich being the most expensive and high-paying city in Germany (next to Frankfurt), salaries are still low, and real estate is still cheap, compared to the valley. That's what I mean by "special opportunity" if you look at it from Apple's point of view.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#75

Post by jpz »

I would imagine a lot of this is de-risking the issues surrounding the nativism in US politics. Canada is a good nearshore location. I presume visas for foreigners are considerably less problematic.

I'm in Sydney and we see Amazon do a lot of recruitment sessions here.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#76

Post by ttul »

buzzkillington wrote: post #47
ttul wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get into a senior role at one of the big tech firms, pay matches the valley. For lesser roles, Canada is cheaper, but the gap is closing rapidly as talent runs dry.

Senior roles in SF/NY pay >600k in total comp. I was flat out told there are no such jobs in Canada two years back. Has that changed?

Yes, that has changed.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#77

Post by gyulai »

drivebycomment wrote: post #71
gyulai wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5000 new jobs is not what the article is saying, but capacity to grow to 5000. I don't know how many they have now, and creating capacity to do something is not the same as actually doing it. Also, to put the number in perspective: 5000 would be only 4.3% of their global workforce, and my guess would be that Canada must actually be one of their biggest non-U.S. presences. (London also has a strong one for Google). I'…

> we're not seeing enough of it right now to contradict the notion that these companies are still very much centralized. What are you basing this on, and what would be enough ? 4.3%, if indeed happens that way, would be a substantial portion. They already have significant presence in NYC, Seattle/Kirkland, London, Zurich, LA, Hyderabad, Dublin, Tokyo, Austin, etc. A few thousand here and a few thousand there add up q…

The numbers in the article are country-level, and you're responding by saying things about cities. NYC, Seattle and LA are all in the U.S. They're centralized inside the U.S. at the city-level to Mountain View. They're centralized within the English-speaking world at the country-level to the U.S. They're centralized globally w.r.t. language communities to the English-speaking world.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#79

Post by jbay808 »

raverbashing wrote: post #61
buzzkillington wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senior roles in SF/NY pay >600k in total comp. I was flat out told there are no such jobs in Canada two years back. Has that changed?

Yes but not everybody can get to this level of compensation even in SF If you can grow, you'll grow pretty much everywhere I know the 600k sound tempting but it's not like it doesn't have any strings attached. Getting paid, let's say 200k USD in Canada, might get you closer to owning your home than the 600k in SF

Where in Canada? Winnipeg? That's not where these offices are going.

Re: Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay

#80

Post by aygthrwy »

tanilama wrote: post #67
gyulai wrote: post #53

...we've been having these kinds of headlines from local media outlets pretty much everywhere where FAANG have created/expanded presences. -- But it seems to me that these companies are extremely centralized and only decentralize to the extent that it is unavoidable (e.g. distributed data centers for reasons of latency) or that it captures special opportunities (e.g. Apple expanding in Munich right now, but doing onl…

> I'd be willing to bet that non-Silicon Valley locations have predominantly more junior people, and that certain promotions are harder to get and will come with the necessity to move to the valley This doesn't sound right TBH. Most junior people are actually in HQ, because HQ has head counts and can offer to train them, while satellite office won't have so many HCs and usually there to snatch up experienced develope…

Yeah, I've noticed a recent exodus of mid-level and senior people out of the Bay Area and to the major satellite offices in the US and abroad.

The traditional wisdom is that you should work from HQ to maximize your career advancement, but I think many people are weighing this against the untenable housing situation and realizing it's not worth it.

Also, San Francisco was considered a fun alternative to living in Cupertino or Menlo Park or Mountain View, but the city just keeps going further downhill. Junior employees likely have a higher tolerance than senior employees for the quality-of-life issues you deal with in San Francisco.

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