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Canada’s vanishing tech sector

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Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#71

Post by edwinnathaniel »

fingerprinter wrote: post #69
Cyranix wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Vancouver Island, and I hear quite a bit about the housing prices in Vancouver. Random semi-recent article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03...

I'm an American living in Australia right now (Adelaide) and wife and I are thinking of moving to Victoria on Vancouver Island. She's a GP and I'm a geek. I know the home prices are going to be high, but tbh, it seems Australia is also quite high! If one was willing to live in the suburbs, a bit away from the city, is it really as bad as people say? Also, how is the tech scene in Victoria?

If you need to ask "how is the tech scene in X" then you already got your answer.

I don't mean to be negative but popularity and great tech scene may go hand in hand.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#72

Post by [deleted] »

fingerprinter wrote: post #69
Cyranix wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Vancouver Island, and I hear quite a bit about the housing prices in Vancouver. Random semi-recent article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03...

I'm an American living in Australia right now (Adelaide) and wife and I are thinking of moving to Victoria on Vancouver Island. She's a GP and I'm a geek. I know the home prices are going to be high, but tbh, it seems Australia is also quite high! If one was willing to live in the suburbs, a bit away from the city, is it really as bad as people say? Also, how is the tech scene in Victoria?

[deleted]

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#73

Post by edwinnathaniel »

swalberg wrote: post #61
redthrowaway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of shopify, so don't take this the wrong way, but would you really be a good fit for someone with a baby and a mortgage? Currently, he's making decent money, with great pension and benefits, doing incredibly boring work. He could leave all that behind and work for shopify, for what? A couple fun years of lower total compensation without the security? As someone who's finishing up college, I'd hop on tha…

I don't know about working conditions at Shopify but I don't think the same mindset exists in Canada about working yourself into the ground for your startup. I work for another startup - Wave Accounting. I left a fairly safe, well paying job to come here. I'm paid well, my work-life balance is great, and I love my work. And I have 3 kids and a wife who is in grad school (paying off my mortgage early helped with the d…

When you're young and feeling a bit adventurous or idealist, sure, make mistakes and try different things.

Keep in mind that the parent (top) said he's working in government, that's top-notch benefit that you can't get anywhere else. If startups can offer the same level of pay and benefit, even with risk, people will flock to startups.

Having said that, there's one more scenario that I've seen people prefer to choose:

1) Get a fairly stable job (albeit boring one)

2) Do 8-4PM

3) Work on side projects/hobby/small businesses on your free time

Why work for startups or small-medium companies where you may have to work slightly harder and get paid either slightly or way less?

It's just... different...

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#74

Post by fleitz »

cletus wrote: post #22

I am an Australian/British dual-citizen (born in Australia but lived and worked some ~3 years in London and ~1 year in Zurich) who now works in New York. I've had discussions with various people (mainly other engineers) on the topic of how one would go about starting a startup. These discussions--largely theoretical--have centered around three problems: 1. Where? 2. The route to funding/profitability; and 3. Visa/res…

Eastern Canada has a vanishing tech sector, out here in Vancouver it's perfectly alive and well.

The issue with Vancouver is not software patents, but capital recycling. Most of our tech capital leaves Vancouver instead of staying to be reinvested, this is why mining works so well in Vancouver, there is a huge amount of capital recycling, similar to what you'd see in the bay area in tech. (Oddly enough SF also has a fairly large mining sector)

The big advantages to Canada that I see are SRED funding (70% of your dev salary could be paid by the feds), and CMF funding if you're doing a digital media project (75% of costs covered up to $500K for development, production and operations for a total of $1.5 mm)

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#75

Post by Sukotto »

Many non-tech friends/family have told me that Victoria BC has a booming tech industry (esp in gaming). Can anyone confirm that for me? I haven't found very much online about it so feel a bit doubtful.

I'm Canadian and moving back to Victoria next month from NY. The current plan is to push hard on a small service business for the airline industry (so I'm not in a hurry to find a new job). Even so, I've been away for over a decade and the place is likely to have changed a lot.

If you are in Victoria, the island, Vancouver, or the sunshine coast, I would love to buy you lunch (or just a coffee) and chat about the lay of the tech landscape in the area. Email's in my profile if you're up for it.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#76

Post by excuse-me »

randomdata wrote: post #27
cletus wrote: post #22

I am an Australian/British dual-citizen (born in Australia but lived and worked some ~3 years in London and ~1 year in Zurich) who now works in New York. I've had discussions with various people (mainly other engineers) on the topic of how one would go about starting a startup. These discussions--largely theoretical--have centered around three problems: 1. Where? 2. The route to funding/profitability; and 3. Visa/res…

engineers aren't even on the list of high-demand occupations Probably because there is no demand. My local municipal government was recently looking for someone to maintain their website, which is little more than a simple blog. The job description essentially laid out the job as your basic, run of the mill CRUD application. The kind of stuff kids in high school do for fun. When you read down to the requirements sect…

Even if you are an engineer you want get to work as one in Canada. It's the closed-est closed shop outside the Vatican. Any supervisor role in government/large industry needs a registered professional - ie a pEng, and they don't recognise any one elses engineers.

PhD rocket scientists on Canadarm are supervised by new electrical engineering graduates. There is a special exemption to allow university science profs to supervise PhD students but the engineering institute is campaigning against it.

It's a nice place to work in many ways, but it is like working in Britain in the 70s

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#77

Post by CountHackulus »

dkubb wrote: post #9
jaems33 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Big companies like Microsoft and Google tend to snatch a good portion of highly skilled engineers, while most designers (product and visual) tend to head towards New York City or San Francisco for better growth and money.

IME the remaining skilled engineers want to work remotely. The last 8 years I've worked almost exclusively for US based businesses as a remote contractor. It's the best of both worlds, I can charge competitive rates but have a relatively overall lower cost of living and access to free healthcare. Taxes are higher in Canada, but it works out that I'm way ahead than if I lived in SF or NY. The downside is that I occasi…

That's interesting, I've always wanted to do something like that and never really figured out how. Mind giving details? Or if you'd rather not do it here, just send me an email, it's my username at gmail.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#78

Post by excuse-me »

unfocused wrote: post #20

I've been recently asking my Engineer friends about this very topic. I've always known that it's not the same as it was. I wish I was wrong. Quite a few have left the field, and others have left the country. I've been working in the high tech sector in Ottawa for 10 years now. I started out working for (big surprise) a start up telecom company as a co-op student. I loved it. Then tried the government. I wanted to kil…

The good people move to the US, the mediocre find Dilbert slots in government or essentially nationalized industries (Nortel/RIM/MDA)

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#79

Post by excuse-me »

redthrowaway wrote: post #58
camlinke wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the name of your Uncle's company? Tell him to fire me an email, I'd be happy to do what I can to help him find someone. There are quite a few good devs in Edmonton and specific to gaming BioWare attracts a large number of talented people to town, and leaks out some very good people at times depending on their development cycle. cam.linke@gmail.com

http://cooleimmersive.com/ They make FPS-style training programs for service rigs, among other things. Thanks for the offer, I'll pass it on.

They are awsome guys, it's tough that they are in Edmonton. Had a nice chat with them once, right upto the point where they say ... in edmonton..

If you are making $1000/day on the oil patch then you can put up with it, but why would you move there for a regular dev job?

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#80

Post by mwd_ »

To give a sense of what the job market is like here in Vancouver, I know a few people who accepted great offers at Google or similar companies after getting only a couple of mediocre offers locally. There are some interesting startups here for sure and I haven't had trouble finding work but the major tech employers are not on the same level as what you find in the Bay Area.

The talent drain that exists unfortunately forms a self-perpetuating cycle. It lowers the quality of remaining talent, so there are fewer successful companies, and as a result there are fewer potential tech investors of the kind they have in the Bay Area. This is a perennial problem in Canada that has affected multiple industries in a similar way.

Another local problem in Vancouver is the high cost of living. Even Toronto suffers from this somewhat. They're both pretty appealing cities but they don't necessarily have the best "price to performance" ratio.

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