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Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

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Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#101

Post by kelvin0 »

"The downside is a more European attitude toward work— less intense, less ambitious, more likely to have wine with lunch, Mr. Adelman says"

As a Montrealer and a Sotware Engineer having worked at various size companies in this city, I can say I've NEVER seen my collegues have wine at lunch. Working in video game industry and sleeping at the office at crunch time (back in the days) I couldn't say my collegues or I 'lacked' the famed Silicon Valley work ethos ... This article is fraught with stereotypes and coated with a few fragment of facts ...

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#102

Post by kelvin0 »

Istof wrote: post #45
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #7

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

here is how a standard poutine should look like for anyone who doesn't know: https://www.google.com/search?q=ashton+poutine+images

Yeah, it's not supposed to have a weird 'cheese Whiz' yellowish radioactive gravy (see the Article's picture of an unnameable monstrosity)

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#103

Post by FollowSteph3 »

brennanm wrote: post #23

A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries" You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when y…

I agree. A key part not mentioned is that you have to fund the salaries before and it's only paid much later! As in after you close your fiscal you then have to submit and it takes about a year before you're paid. So in total you have to cover the salaries for two 2+ years before you're paid. You also have no guarantee you will be paid.

It's also only on developer costs that are accepted and only on R&D work: none of the business costs etc are covered. In many cases these are just as significant or more.

There's also a reason that a consulting industry has started around it, it's a good amount of effort. Again helping more advanced companies as they can afford the costs for the 2+ year it takes before you can get it back. And again nothing is guaranteed.

Essentially it's not good for startups or smaller companies, it really only benefits companies of a medium size that were alreday going to cover this expenses by reducing some of their costs to increase them growth rate. But for a small company, less than 10 employees it's really hard to actually take advantage of the program in real life.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#104

Post by ripb »

naterator wrote: post #86
orbitur wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. I don't think this is much of a valid criticism, since most people in the States can also move to SV/NYC and make 2x or 3x their current salaries as well . Hell, those cities probably have the highest numbers (so ignoring CoL) than most places in the world.

I think it's a very valid criticism if your best people (not talking about "most" people, who don't start companies and create new stuff) can easily move to another country (or other state inside the US) and earn WAY more for the same job or skill set. It's not a valid criticism if the gov. footing 80% allows these companies to now offer SV/NY competitive salaries. Which I suspect will happen if they do it right (bot…

>I think it's a very valid criticism if your best people (not talking about "most" people, who don't start companies and create new stuff) can easily move to another country (or other state inside the US) and earn WAY more for the same job or skill set.

I think, what a lot Americans overlook, is that most people in the rest of developed world want more from life than a high salary. Moving from somewhere with the highest standards of living in the world, such as Toronto, to somewhere that doesn't even make the list of top 5/10 in North America alone such as NYC, might come with a salary increase but it's a significant trade off in terms of other factors.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#105

Post by miguelrochefort »

michaelochurch wrote: post #99
mcpherrinm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60k/yr to 180k/yr are not unbelievable salaries for a junior Canadian moving to a now more senior position at a big silicon valley tech company.

Silicon Valley companies tend to downgrade you in position for the simple reason of not being from there. That person would get a salary bump, but it'd be to another junior role around $100-120k. The money improves, but the job position degrades. I found it obnoxious and annoying, and it's one of the reasons I'll probably never move to that cesspool. The idea that I should have 5 years knocked off my career because I…

Junior role? The things I'd do for $100-120k...

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#106

Post by myth_drannon »

Although I worked for several startups that benefited from SRED credits, I always found the system appalling and prefer the way it works in US with VCs. No government should take hard working folks's money and give them to white middle-upper class, well educated founders that will possibly just get wealthy even more and the class division cycle will continue. I would bet if you pay this money directly to the engineers themselves they will create much more value.

Anyways I found that writing everyday what I did in a way it looks more as a research just so SRED accountants don't question the company, as extremely annoying to my day flow.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#107

Post by scrabble »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #7

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

I'm a software dev in Waterloo and I can definitely see that. I've got absolutely no problem getting job offers, but they are low compared to what friends of mine who moved to the US are making.

I'm sure my cost of living is less. On the other hand, looking at the figures makes you feel a little undervalued.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#108

Post by jebus989 »

kelvin0 wrote: post #101

"The downside is a more European attitude toward work— less intense, less ambitious, more likely to have wine with lunch, Mr. Adelman says" As a Montrealer and a Sotware Engineer having worked at various size companies in this city, I can say I've NEVER seen my collegues have wine at lunch. Working in video game industry and sleeping at the office at crunch time (back in the days) I couldn't say my collegues or I 'la…

As a European (ish), ditto.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#109

Post by nivertech »

nl wrote: post #82
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #7

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. I don't understand this. If the "average" engineer in SV makes 120Kish, then the same engineer is making 40K in Canada? And they can make 240K in NY (with no additional experience)? Are those number correct? If they are: I'd note that salaries in Australia are more closely aligned with SV salari…

I think they talking about after tax numbers

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#110

Post by brennanm »

doctorwho wrote: post #77
brennanm wrote: post #23

A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries" You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when y…

As someone who has actually used the SR&ED program for many years, I have to say that you've got it a bit wrong... SR&ED will cover a percentage of capital expenditures essential to the work and a percentage of $ paid to contractors so it's salary plus SOME eligible expenses. Salaries make up the biggest part though. I got about 65% back, using the proxy method - a simpler way of calculating SR&ED overhead on eligibl…

> Any Canadian software company that doesn't at least look at SR&ED is just throwing money out the window.

Agreed.

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