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U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

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Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#111

Post by [deleted] »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #68
smnrchrds wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ____ salaries are less than half than in the US for software developer roles. You can fill the blank with essentially any non-US location and it would remain correct. Nowhere in the world pays tech workers as much as US does, in absolute or relative terms. Most of the world, Canada included, has priced developer salaries close to engineer salaries. The US is the sole exception where developer salaries are priced cl…

>The US is the sole exception where developer salaries are priced close to doctor salaries. This is incorrect. Good software developers in Poland, and to some extent the Ukraine, are enjoying salaries comparable with doctors there, if not more.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#112

Post by lhorie »

toephu2 wrote: post #103
mcpherrinm wrote: post #9

I'm moving from San Francisco to Toronto soon. Staying at the same job, my salary will go from $180k usd to $128k usd ($170k cad). (Equity comp remains the same) That's a pretty big cut, though at least for me it's worth it because of non-monetary reasons, like being closer to family, not dealing with immigration anymore, healthcare/education. The money stuff isn't so bad. A downtown Toronto condo is a lot cheaper th…

How's the weather there though? Can we just stop comparing cities? Everyone loves to complain about the cost of living in SF and always brags about how they could buy a mansion in the midwest. No one cares. It's all about location. There is a reason why California is the most populous state in the union despite it being so expensive (weather and jobs). There is a reason the population in the midwest is so low (lack o…

> How's the weather there though?

Right this moment, they are almost the same (46F in SF vs 37F in Toronto). Toronto winter usually goes between 5F and 40F, but summer is way warmer than SF (between 75F to 90F vs 60F to 70F in SF)

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#113

Post by toephu2 »

smnrchrds wrote: post #14
bobbytran wrote: post #6

Toronto salaries are less than half than in the US for software developer roles. With the high cost of living, I dont know how anyone can live there.

> ____ salaries are less than half than in the US for software developer roles. You can fill the blank with essentially any non-US location and it would remain correct. Nowhere in the world pays tech workers as much as US does, in absolute or relative terms. Most of the world, Canada included, has priced developer salaries close to engineer salaries. The US is the sole exception where developer salaries are priced cl…

> The US is the sole exception where developer salaries are priced close to doctor salaries.

Actually, in the U.S. it is common for a FANG worker's salary to surpass that of doctors'.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#114

Post by torgian »

freebee34 wrote: post #31

Taxes in canada are very high. The ontario income tax rate of 53.53% applies at 220K CAD. the equivalent rate for Cali in USD is 34.75%. you then have PST/GST (14%), way fewer deductions and european gas taxes. The one thing that is a good deal in canada is cheap high quality education. The "free" healthcare that you get is not very good and even the for pay services are of surprisingly low quality.

I love the tax argument.

You're immediately forgetting State taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and such. That 34% quickly becomes 44 to 50% depending on where you live.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#116

Post by endgame »

jbarham wrote: post #97
Phanyxx wrote: post #24

Vancouverite here. When major tech companies started setting up satellite offices here, I assumed it'd be a temporary situation, and that we'd be at the mercy of any change in the U.S. immigration process. The longer there's an immigration bottleneck though, the more entrenched these companies become here. There are more senior roles opening up here all the time, and salaries are increasing in this competitive market…

I've also lived in Toronto and Vancouver. Did the obligatory move to work as a software dev in California and now live in Australia. The fact is that tech salaries in Canada are still much lower than the US while the cost of living, especially housing, is still very high, for Vancouver and Toronto in particular. Not to mention the lousy winters. Spend any time browsing /r/vancouver or /r/toronto and you'll quickly re…

You left Canada because the housing market was a rort, and chose to come to AUSTRALIA!?

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#117

Post by avocado4 »

dmode wrote: post #89

Just for perspective - green card wait for Indian tech workers in US is 100+ years. In Canada, you can permanent residency even before you land there

And after you get a citizenship you get a TN Visa and move South to double your income (if you're a top performer).

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#118

Post by lhorie »

toephu2 wrote: post #105
lhorie wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Toronto, then to SF. Thought I'd also share my anecdata here. I used to make ~100k/yr CAD (75k/yr USD) when I was in TO around 6 years ago. I bought a house around 7 years ago for 550k. I did a remote stint for a Boulder company for a couple years (~120k/yr USD working from TO), then moved to SF (~200k/yr USD + ~100k/yr equity). I'm a bit out of the loop w/ TO salaries nowadays, but your 170k CAD definitel…

You can easily find a room in a house for rent between $1000-1600 in SF. Far better than a "bunkbed". Just check craigslist. But hey, everyone loves to knock expensive SF housing. 28k/yr for preschool in SF is on the high end. That is not the median. Please re-do all your prices with the median, not your handpicked most expensive version.

> room in a house for rent between $1000-1600 in SF

In SF? If you mean in like Oakland, yes I believe I've seen some listings a couple years ago, though I wasn't sure they were real (sites seemed shady). I don't recall finding anything in SF proper for 1.6k, let alone 1k (anywhere), but to be fair I wasn't looking too far out from downtown at the time and since I was coming from out of the country, I was restricting my searches to reputable sources and I had no word-of-mouth network. For what it's worth, I used to rent my basement in Toronto for $300 and you can go even cheaper w/ student houses. So even if you can actually find "cheap" housing in the Bay Area, I can tell you that you can get even cheaper stuff from GTA's chinese community.

The 28k/13k figure is from Bright Horizons (they have locations both in SF and TO so it's perfect for apples-to-apples comparison, and it's what I'm familiar w/). You can get definitely cheaper childcare in both cities (with the caveat that in SF you're going to struggle with wait lists, whereas you typically don't in TO). IIRC, the cheapest in SF is if you qualify for public childcare (1.7k/mo I think it was?), which is still more expensive than Bright Horizons in Toronto.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#119

Post by WaspsAreEvil »

refurb wrote: post #99
Apocryphon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language barrier aside, Montréal seems like a hidden gem.

Montreal is an Anglophone city. Last I checked 80% were English speakers (not necessarily primary language). Now Quebec City is entirely different. I could see language being more challenging there. Honestly, Montreal is a hidden gem. Low cost housing, ton of culture and history. The only drawbacks can be the Québécois anti-immigrant and anti-business climate, but it’s not stifling, just more noticeable than the rest…

Well when the "immigrants" are francophobic dudes like you who invite themselves with their colonial boots to say that the only thing wrong with montreal is that it's our home and that we exist then yeah you can fuck off.

And no, Montreal is not an anglophone city. Never was, never will, even when you people fed off the misery and poverty of my people it wasn't.

Re: U.S. immigration policy has been a boon for the tech industry in Canada

#120

Post by rewq4321 »

rohit2412 wrote: post #107
kamaal wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Come back on a L1 visa and boom you can apply in the EB-1 category and get your green card in a couple of years. Those days are gone now. You go into EB-1 only if you get into the US on L1-A. They don't give L1-A's easily these days. For starters you need to be in director level positions to even qualify for L1-A's. Even then the waiting period for India EB-1 itself is growing and stands at 5+ years now. And it wil…

> In short we Indians bought this upon ourselves. I was with you till here. No, we did not bring this to ourselves. The answer is that USA has dumb policies.

Agreed. I'm Australian and was investigating my options for potentially moving to the US to start a company in the AI space, and there's so much friction that I ended up deciding to just stay here. I can't see how they think these policies are a good idea in the long term (or even short term, for that matter).
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