Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by laurencerowe » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

jldugger wrote: post #64

syedkarim wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above was referring to total comp. From what I have read, annual stock/RSU compensation is equivalent to salary. I have read that a $300,000 salary is not unheard of for a senior FAANG engineering role.

It's rather rare, from what I can tell. Esp. in the context of immigration, h1bdata can be useful. Google llc has precisely 1 software engineer certified at a salary above 300k. 250k, more achievable, with very senior status. What really happens though is RSU appreciation. GOOG has more than doubled in the past 4 years. You are awarded X dollars of stock on hire and every annual review period, but that is converted i…

The PERM / H1B figures only show base salary and exclude RSUs which for most big tech companies is the larger factor at senior and above levels. Netflix pay all cash so their PERM figures are much more representative and match the levels.fyi numbers pretty well, giving me confidence that those self reported figures are broadly accurate.

(When comparing keep in mind Netflix hire only at senior software engineer level and above and have a single level title so staff/principal levels are collapsed to senior just with higher salaries.)

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

#232

Post by 52-6F-62 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

wolco wrote: post #226

52-6F-62 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in the context of Canada versus USA the difference seems marginal. https://neuvoo.ca/tax-calculator/?iam=&uet_calculate=calcula... Using the USD equivalent amount in CA https://neuvoo.com/tax-calculator/?iam=&uet_calculate=calcul... Works out to ~$74k And that’s including our healthcare and other social services. That ~$2000 CAD goes a long, long way and I’d rather have it doing what it’s doing than gain it for w…

That's $2000+ more at 100,000 to 110,000. If we pick a different state even more. 5700 left out of 10000. I know a lot of worthy causes that could benefit from the $2000 where it would make a meanful impact.

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. In my example the $2000 CAD paid in Canada to taxes at the same income in Ontario versus California goes to fund one of the worlds highest ranked public education and healthcare systems. I’d call that a meaningful impact.

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

#233

Post by ta416425 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

Invictus0 wrote: post #185

jariel wrote: post #107

As a Candian, it seems to me so very pathetically and predictably Canadian to literally herald the surrender of your own industries to foreign takeover. Canada is (often) to tech what Mexico is to cars. Mexican 'assembly' of cars is fine and good, but they don't exactly move up the value chain from there. Canada produces a lot of decent tech people, who will work for 2/3 the wages, unfortunately, this doesn't map to…

Not a Canadian, but Canada is leagues ahead of the US in a lot of important ways. In my opinion, at the level of nations, it's much better to be boringly mediocre than outrageously good or bad in any one way or another. Toronto is a first class city, like you said: what more "exceptionalism" do you need?

Competent investment in (and stewardship of) transit infrastructure would be nice.

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

#234

Post by parasubvert » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 6:06 AM UTC

ta416425 wrote: post #213

parasubvert wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is already nearly as big as Mexico for cars: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_car_exp... I’m not sure why you’re upset with the CBC over this, we’ve been a branch plant economy since the 1960s. A lot of this has to do with Canadian temperament and mindset, which isn’t particularly entrepreneurial due a dearth of leadership from its investor class. There have been many tech darlings out of C…

I’m not sure why you’re upset with the CBC over this Not just the CBC, but they do it a lot. There is this cloying "we've finally made it!" back-slapping the press reliably produces every time a well-known company announces an expansion, no matter how big or small, and really any time some positive PR comes out of the Canadian tech sector. The energy we spend congratulating ourselves for a job well done unintentional…

Being a tech worker in the US isn’t all that great once you’re building a family and need to consider the education, housing, healthcare impacts of the US system. There is more to life than comp. In particular , having experienced both systems quite intensively, I really don’t agree the healthcare is better in the US.

I certainly encourage young Canadian tech workers to move to the US for a while (as I did) to make some money and see what it’s like.

However, many of us eventually moved back. One of the better deals is to work remotely for US tech while in Canada, to get some of the comp benefits while living in a much better overall country (in terms of many factors - happiness, quality of life, life expectancy, inclusiveness, etc). This will be subjective of course. But I don’t think it’s disingenuous or myopic to be happy that these tech giants are growing in Canada. It keeps people here. Being here makes a difference.

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

#235

Post by dntbnmpls » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 7:41 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #8

I often see people framing the US & Canada primarily as a competition in tech. The exact opposite is largely the case. The US benefits enormously from having a wealthy, vibrant Canada, including in its tech sector. We're permanent allies, liberal democracies and share a very large border as well as $600 billion in goods trade. The ability for technology, labor, products, services and capital to freely flow back and f…

> I often see people framing the US & Canada primarily as a competition in tech.

I've never heard US and Canada mentioned as competition in anything - let alone in tech. Geographically, demographically, technologically and economically, Canada is in no position to compete with the US.

> The US benefits enormously from having a wealthy, vibrant Canada, including in its tech sector.

Enormously? Canada pretty much sells us their resources and some canadian manufactured US cars. We account for 76% of all canada's trade, canada represents a much smaller portion of our overall trade. One party benefits a lot more than the other party.

> We're permanent allies, liberal democracies and share a very large border as well as $600 billion in goods trade.

No such thing as permanent allies. Just like there is no such thing as permanent government since canada existed mostly as a nonvoting subject of a monarchy.

> They're our largest export market

And also one we seem to have a neverending trade deficit with.

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/t...

> If anything the US should be directly helping Canada to boom in tech.

Or we could help arkansas, idaho, pennsylvannia and a countless other states "boom in tech". Shouldn't Canada be the ones helping themselves? Shouldn't the US be helping ourselves?

> The more the merrier.

Sounds like a utopian dream.

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

#236

Post by qeqeqeqe » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 8:26 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #176

qeqeqeqe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously going to be mostly engineering, it's Google.

The only mention I've been able to find online suggest that only about 1/3 of Google's workforce are in R&D: https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Google-employees-ar... " This information is most likely buried in Google’s annual report — the last one I could dig up is their 2015 fiscal year end report. According to the paper published by Google Inc and Alphabet Inc, there are 61,814 full-time employees with 23,33…

That source you cite literally says that "45% of Google employees are programmers."

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

#237

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 9:10 AM UTC

gyulai wrote: post #134

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is €80k an extremely high salary in Germany when a nice apartment in Munich is closing on €800k? Fells like a place with Bay Area prices but without the pay.

I'm saying TAXES are extremely high. Getting paid €80k/yr before taxes in Munich is a bad joke, but is unfortunately where the market is. Many people are living that bad joke. -- Stop disagreeing with me, please, when there really is no disagreement here.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sounds like I was disagreeing with you. May I ask how did you get a remote position in Germany?

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

#238

Post by gyulai » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 10:00 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #237

gyulai wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying TAXES are extremely high. Getting paid €80k/yr before taxes in Munich is a bad joke, but is unfortunately where the market is. Many people are living that bad joke. -- Stop disagreeing with me, please, when there really is no disagreement here.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sounds like I was disagreeing with you. May I ask how did you get a remote position in Germany?

By working for a remote-only company that's based out of the U.S. but allows people to live anywhere they want globally. Whenever I get contacted by a German-based headhunter working for a German company, I tell them that I'm perfectly willing to talk, but only if it's going to be a remote position and that they (the headhunters) need to do more to educate their clients on the benefits of remote. -- But I might as well be talking to a wall when I do that. It's just not happening.

I've found that German-based companies are perfectly willing to pay 2x - 3x for an onsite freelancer than they would pay for an onsite employee, but they just don't do remote.

Since U.S.-based remote-only companies don't pay nearly as well as U.S.-based companies doing onsite - in my experience[!] -, this means that I could actually be earning more by doing onsite freelancing for German companies than doing remote for U.S. companies, but if you factor in the time & money for commuting and the increased cost of living from spending a lot of time in the cities where German companies offering interesting opportunities tend to be based, my disposable income/rate of savings, purchasing power, and quality of life are actually all better by doing remote.

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

#239

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

gyulai wrote: post #238

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sounds like I was disagreeing with you. May I ask how did you get a remote position in Germany?

By working for a remote-only company that's based out of the U.S. but allows people to live anywhere they want globally. Whenever I get contacted by a German-based headhunter working for a German company, I tell them that I'm perfectly willing to talk, but only if it's going to be a remote position and that they (the headhunters) need to do more to educate their clients on the benefits of remote. -- But I might as we…

That matches my experience with recruiters in Austria exactly where if you ask about being allowed to work remotely, most will give you a look like you just insulted their mothers.

The thing about recruiters you gotta keep in mind is, they're not your friends and they're not here to help you land your dream job. You're just a meal ticket to them and they just want to find some sucker to quickly fill the position as they're in competition with the other recruiters so whoever gets the position filled first gets paid, the others are left hanging. If you start making demands that the employers don't want to hear like remote work, they'll realize you're not a sucker and they won't get their money with you so they'll drop you as a candidate all together even if you would be a great fit for the position.

My question to you was how to you proceed to find good remote jobs? Linkedin? HN? Any advice is appreciated. My email is in my profile if you want to go private.

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

#240

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #199

stiray wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just love to hear this. /sarcasm on With 26 years in software development, low level linux (kernel "stuff") and low level windows (kernel "stuff" again), with work including from analyzing malware to writting DRM that was left unbroken for 3 years, to high level software, system administration on various unixes and unix like beasts, including low level networking, fluent in c, c++, asm x86/64, go and some "stuff" I…

> writting DRM that was left unbroken for 3 years > and some "stuff" I am not proud off (c#, java, python, js, php) I would venture that maybe you should be less proud of the first one and less ashamed of the second one.

Why? Not all DRM is the boogie-man.

He's proud he invented a lock nobody could pick. Whether that lock create inconveniences to some people is another thing but that's not his fault.