11–20 of 378 posts
Canada's aggressively merit based immigration policy has clear advantages in terms of allowing talent in. That said Canadian tech firms still pay way too little.
As horrible as it sounds, in this specific respect, the current US administration has been really fantastic for Canada. More and more new grads are choosing to stay in the country and work with local tech companies, and we're experiencing a reverse brain-drain like never before.
Source?
> As the administration of President Donald Trump has increased scrutiny of H-1B visas Has it? All that has been done is a study of potential H-1B reforms that is still under way. I'd bet that nothing changes in the next two years. The puppet masters wouldn't want it any other way.
On top of that, this has scared off a lot of companies from even looking at H1-Bs while hiring.
> As the administration of President Donald Trump has increased scrutiny of H-1B visas Has it? All that has been done is a study of potential H-1B reforms that is still under way. I'd bet that nothing changes in the next two years. The puppet masters wouldn't want it any other way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend of mine tells me that one of his biggest regrets from the past handful of years is not having applied for and received citizenship when President Obama was president. He has a misdemeanor (for something that almost every US citizen would consider trivial) from when he was a teenager but because of when it happened and what it is, naturalizing would require a waiver from USCIS in order to proceed (and to not…
Are there any downsides to getting one, outside of perhaps having to let go of one's other citizenships for countries that don't allow it?
If you are already a green card holder, you are already subject to the tax and other reporting requirements like a US citizen so the only real difference from the US perspective is you can't vote and aren't guaranteed to be able to cross the US border. It's that last bit that most people really want.
I did the math for Toronto(which is more expensive than Montreal, and about the same as Vancouver).
For a typical software engineer, taxes take away 25% of gross pay in Ontario while it's over 30% in California and New York. Cost of living is much less(by 30-40% if you rent) in Toronto compared to Cali/New York. Of course, you will also earn 40% less in USD. So it about evens out. The site Hired.com came to similar conclusions that I've attached in an image below [2]
To go into more detail, According to numbeo[1] which crowdsources data, groceries and restaurants are 20% cheaper(adjusted for currency) in Toronto, but of course the salary is more than 20% lower. But the real kicker is the rent, and while Toronto rent is definitely increasing, it is nowhere close to NYC of Silicon Valley levels, and most sources do say you have to pay 50% more for an equivalent apartment in NYC.
Also according to my calculations from the data on numbeo, the equivalent of (pre-tax) $135,000 USD in NYC is $110,000 CAD in Toronto. It is of course easier to get 135k in NYC than 110k in Toronto, but the difference isn't nearly as big as the CAD/USD differences and wage gap makes it seem. And if you can get a job in the Waterloo-Kitchenner area, CoL of course plummets. Freelancing for clients in the US or working remotely also has great advantages.
If you're a US citizen, I don't think Canada or Toronto is enticing enough to drag you away - especially with places like Seattle, Austin and Colorado being better than SV and NYC in terms of Salary:CoL. But if you're not, Canada is comfortably the second best company to be a software engineer in, and the expected expansion of Amazon, Google and Microsoft in Toronto is likely to create a lot more high paying jobs and new startups in the coming years, especially with the US's anti-immigration stance basically making it impossible for Indians and the Chinese to get permanent residency.
The excellent universities and industry leading research in AI of UToronto and UWaterloo is a bonus if you're a student as well.
[1]https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou....
[2] http://www.planetweb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/img4-7ee8...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend of mine tells me that one of his biggest regrets from the past handful of years is not having applied for and received citizenship when President Obama was president. He has a misdemeanor (for something that almost every US citizen would consider trivial) from when he was a teenager but because of when it happened and what it is, naturalizing would require a waiver from USCIS in order to proceed (and to not…
Are there any downsides to getting one, outside of perhaps having to let go of one's other citizenships for countries that don't allow it?
> As the administration of President Donald Trump has increased scrutiny of H-1B visas Has it? All that has been done is a study of potential H-1B reforms that is still under way. I'd bet that nothing changes in the next two years. The puppet masters wouldn't want it any other way.
