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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

#231

Post by zerr »

thawaway1837 wrote: post #226

The drop from 92% to 75% isn’t the complete story, or even the more important story. The real problem is all the other nonsense people have to deal with. We have a really great employee who single handedly wrote most of the company’s build infrastructure, and was happy in the US on his H1B because while it requires renewal every 3 years, he was well paid and enjoying his life. Until about a year and a half ago when h…

Why your company and employee didn't start H1B to green card conversion process?

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

#232

Post by linuxftw »

thawaway1837 wrote: post #226

The drop from 92% to 75% isn’t the complete story, or even the more important story. The real problem is all the other nonsense people have to deal with. We have a really great employee who single handedly wrote most of the company’s build infrastructure, and was happy in the US on his H1B because while it requires renewal every 3 years, he was well paid and enjoying his life. Until about a year and a half ago when h…

> And our company has stopped hiring more tech workers in the US because they don’t want to have to deal with this anymore

So, your company only hires people on visas? That's outrageous.

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

#233

Post by agilebyte »

thbr99 wrote: post #207
Apocryphon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language barrier aside, Montréal seems like a hidden gem.

Unfortunately Québec do not have a working skilled immigration system yet. Québec do not follow rest of Canada's immigration system. The CAQ govt. of Québec has completely messed up the immigration system of Québec. Québec focuses on knowledge of French rather than other merits for their immigration, so they get a huge chunk of unskilled immigrants who speaks only French with no employable skills.

You can still apply for a Permanent Residence outside of Quebec and then drive/fly to Quebec though which is 5/1 hour away respectively.

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

#234

Post by blaser-waffle »

dmurdoch wrote: post #215
thisisnico wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a tech worker in Canada and can agree that the tech salaries are nowhere close to the US. Housing is pretty high as well. The better paying jobs are in government.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd like some numbers to back up the government comment. I live in Ottawa, my SO works for government as does many many friends. I make more then all of them. If you speak french, then maybe this is true as you can move up to director etc. but the VAST majority of the people I know in government do not make more than devs I know.

I'm a USA-ian in Canada, working remotely. I'm in a big Canadian city, we have a hockey team.

The average IT salaries where I live are in the ballpark of 70-100k Canadian Dollars (CAD) -- at least according to Indeed.ca, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor. Given a 20-30% currency difference that's capping out at around $80K US Dollars (USD). Not terrible by US national standards, but not impressive for tech; i.e EMC offered me $66k USD out of college in 2008.

Meanwhile, on Reddit's r/networking, or r/sysadmin, where they have periodic salary surveys, network engineers in NoVA or Chicago are pulling $105k-115 USD with only 5 years experience and a CCNA -- and that's just an average, you can often do way better.

In Calgary the highest salaries were related to oil companies, and for tech they seemed to cap out at around $150K CAD for SCADA devs, instrumentation specialists, etc. I'm sure there are higher paying gigs available, but you're getting into specialized, only-found-by-word-of-mouth roles.

I've been lucky to be remote for the past 5 years, working for US firms, but if I wasn't it would probably be close to a 50% pay cut, on top of a higher cost of living. The COL wouldn't shock someone from NoVA or Seattle or Chicago but it's higher than you'd think.

Re: Ottawa -- I'd assume that, like Washington DC, the government contracting and federal bureaucracy are effectively their own mini employment universe that plays by their own rules, and doesn't reflect the rest of the country (e.g. security clearances mean your job can't be outsourced to India). Source: am from DC originally.

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

#235

Post by blaser-waffle »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #203
jammygit wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really important thing would be if more Canadian founders were able to create massive companies successfully. The jobs are certainly welcome but I want to hear about more successful companies owned by Canadians

Of all places there are a few rather successful companies coming out of Saskatoon.

I wish SaskTel was nationwide.

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

#236

Post by refurb »

fouc wrote: post #37
yawaramin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto may be expensive but it's not SF-level expensive. Salaries may not compare but you don't have to worry about basic things like healthcare and high-powered weaponry in the streets. Those are just the top two–there are many other reasons to move to Canada than just money.

I understand SF folks are paying $500-1,000/mo for healthcare?

Not in tech jobs. I pay $60 per month for myself. Company covers the other $8,000.

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

#237

Post by agilebyte »

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.

Rent control. When you compare income vs rent that you see on sites like Kijiji or Padmapper it shows rent for a new tenancy, but that's not what the locals pay.

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

#238

Post by deepGem »

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…

More than anything I didn't get a tech vibe in Toronto. I was at UofT and the surroundings all the time, yet it felt like the town is mostly devoid of tech. Not the same vibe you get in Seattle or Redmond or SV for that matter.

May be it's my bias but Toronto doesn't feel all that multi cultural. Sure you see people of different nationalities but something feels lacking.

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

#239

Post by throw63835 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #101
amatecha wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways, perhaps. The fact we frequently have to pay for prescribed medication is mind-blowingly ridiculous. Even with medical insurance (through your employer or paying for the plan yourself), you're usually forced to use generic medications if you want coverage - even when your doctor signs a Special Authority[0] form to have your medication covered. And yes, there can be pretty substantial differences between…

> substantial differences between name brand and generic I was under the impression generics are molecular identical? How do they differ when the name brand version says on the pack, for example, temazepam 10mg , and the generic version says the same thing?

Lolwut? Two products produced by two different companies, expected to be of the same caliber? Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

Look into the "Warning Letters" database for generics producers vs. branded. It's ridiculous the amount of things generics producers get away with (contaminated product, improper facility maintenance, improper purity and potency oversight, poor quality control).

They're not the same thing. No matter how many laymen -- or worse actual medical professionals who think they know pharma just because they sell pills -- parrot the "fillers causing side-effects" bullshit.

The only thing generics providers need to do is establish a very loose bioequivalency through self-tested experiments (the FDA doesn't conduct the experiments or oversees them, only reviews the results and methodology). Once accepted, shady decisions are easy to cover up, since the FDA only does visits infrequently.

It's like buying on Amazon. You could get the original brand's product or some knock-off. Except in this case, the knock-off is state-supported.

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

#240

Post by refurb »

user5994461 wrote: post #146
toephu2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'.

Actually, not at all. It's just a myth from naive tech workers. Googlers might get 200k but doctors routinely break 400k. Doctors are quite ahead even when you factor in 100k in RSU (which not everybody gets and past stock performance is not an indicator of future performance). Noting it's H1B data so 10-20% below local salaries. Plus doctors can work anywhere in the country, not just in the city where there is googl…

All the high paying doctors are usually specialists in some hard to break into specialty. Your average family doctor is probably making somewhere in the $200k while they bust their asses paying of $300k in student loans.

If you can land a FAANG job, your total comp (after education costs) will outstrip all but the highest paid physicians.

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