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84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

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Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#31

Post by arcticbull »

redis_mlc wrote: post #11
cesarvarela wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But aren’t those things cheaper because there are more taxes? And more taxes mean less salary?

No. There's a US media narrative that taxes and health care are worse in Canada than the US but: 1) You will likely pay more in taxes in California than Canada. 2) It's easier to itemize self-employment tax expenses in Canada, so you can easily pay half the taxes of the US. (I paid 12% of total income the last year I worked in Toronto.) 3) Everybody I know in Canada is happy with health care, and infinitely happier t…

One thing folks don't account for is that the Canadian tax bill includes healthcare, which is something US employers pay $600 per month for. It's effectively a private tax. Comparing like-for-like, one should really include the health premiums paid by employers in the tax total when comparing to Canada.

Even with that in mind, in a number of recent years, the median Canadian tax bill has been lower than the median American tax bill [1]. And to your point, it varies by state/province. The most expensive state OR province for high-income folks is California (51.9%) and the lowest is Alberta (39%). [1]

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes...

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#32

Post by arcticbull »

jchallis wrote: post #16

We welcome our Canadian brothers and sisters with open arms. My cofounder came from Waterloo and together we built a good company with good jobs here in the US.

You should let the border guards know ;) the last time I got a TN my immigration attorney told me "honestly, you're lucky you're white, so you shouldn't have any problems."

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#33

Post by francisl »

redis_mlc wrote: post #11
cesarvarela wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But aren’t those things cheaper because there are more taxes? And more taxes mean less salary?

No. There's a US media narrative that taxes and health care are worse in Canada than the US but: 1) You will likely pay more in taxes in California than Canada. 2) It's easier to itemize self-employment tax expenses in Canada, so you can easily pay half the taxes of the US. (I paid 12% of total income the last year I worked in Toronto.) 3) Everybody I know in Canada is happy with health care, and infinitely happier t…

This is a personal conclusion having work in both, some US and some Canadian based companies. What I realized, the reason we are pay less in Canada, is caused by our perceived value from management.

In the American company, the managers want me to succeed because that is directly link to their success. I'm part of the team, I'm accountable, but I had more freedom.

In the Canadian one, managers want all the credit (pay+bonuses+recognition), because they are the incredible one who made the monkey produce the value. I'm part of a pool, managers will decide what programming language I'll program in, he's managing the risk after all. Oh, and by the way, it was a hard year, not all goals where reached, so they need to cap the bonuses, but the company is glad for the all-time profit record.

Of course, it’s a bit of a caricature. It surely applies to US or Canadian company. But our perceived value struck me in all my employers.

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#34

Post by daniel-cussen »

arcticbull wrote: post #30
afinlayson wrote: post #20

I've been in the USA for 12 years because of the pay difference, and job perks. I'd move back, but I'm married and have a family now. The biggest stress down here is the healthcare and the immigration status, if you are at a stable enough company these aren't an issue, I'm lucky I only had 1 startup fail and cause me months of stress as I tried to fix those issues.

I've been in the US for 10 years because of the pay difference. Perks I'm over. I really don't care, I can buy my own perks with the pay. I've saved up enough to buy quite the lifestyle back in Canada, and I plan to move back before I start a family. I'm just a few months from getting my green card, and I'm genuinely over it. I can't imagine raising kids in the US. The healthcare, oof. Even having kids, maternal mort…

Healthcare in USA is expensive because it's bad. If you have cornered the market on a necessity, and healthcare providers absolutely have, the way to get people to pay more is to deprive them.

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#35

Post by danielscrubs »

dcolkitt wrote: post #7
triceratops wrote: post #3

Gotta pay more money to keep the talent. This isn't rocket science. The crazy thing is Canada has so many advantages that should make paying higher salaries easier. University is cheaper, so people don't have as much (or any) student debt. Healthcare is cheaper for companies to provide - since they generally only have to offer supplemental coverage. And so on.

American firms tend to have much higher quality corporate management than their Canadian counterparts.[1] To be profitable at FAAMG salaries requires leveraging your engineers to achieve very high levels of productivity and execution. That's generally not possible without management that consistently adheres to best practices. [1] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.24.1.203

I was just about to say the same. What was striking to me that the managers I’ve met in SF had all been swe:s and worked up the ladder. In my country it’s very rare, most managers have a background in economics and can’t really help the swe:s with anything besides internal politics. The lens they use is that everything is a cost. Even if the system they bought is the problem of why things take time. They also rely heavy on Garter of what is popular.

We are even starting to have them manage doctors!!

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#36

Post by yladiz »

xenihn wrote: post #25
mlex wrote: post #4

As someone who graduated from Computer Science at Waterloo, this is common for anyone with the ability to do so. Pay is not competitive in Canada, and contrary to the common refrain here, taxes/rent/general CoL does NOT make up for this, not even close.

It's not just the taxes/rent/COL. I know three Canadian SWEs whose parents could have easily bought them a nice house or condo in any major Canadian city, if they had wanted to stay. One of them explained it to me this way: the quality of employers, coworkers, and the overall software engineering work you'll do in Canada just doesn't compare to the US. Even if pay/finances were exactly the same, going to the US would…

I was with you up until the end. There are numerous reasons why people “stay behind” beyond them not being “people you want to work with”, so don’t just lump everyone in that bucket of “they’re not good enough”.

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#37

Post by overqualified »

jacques_chester wrote: post #14

As an Australian living in the US, I understand the dynamics. Canadians and Australians have special access to the US labour market, most of the high-prestige work is happening here... and the pay is much, much better.

... for now ;-). Give it a (4) year(s), mate. Happy Australia Day!

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#38

Post by canucker2016 »

mlex wrote: post #4

As someone who graduated from Computer Science at Waterloo, this is common for anyone with the ability to do so. Pay is not competitive in Canada, and contrary to the common refrain here, taxes/rent/general CoL does NOT make up for this, not even close.

This has been happening for over 30 years.

I and three other CS/Eng seniors were going through full time job interviews on campus in Canada. We interviewed with the big Canadian software firm at the time and with a large US software company.

Three of us got offers from the Canadian company, four of us got offers from the US company. All of us ended up going to the USA.

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#39

Post by [deleted] »

xenihn wrote: post #25
mlex wrote: post #4

As someone who graduated from Computer Science at Waterloo, this is common for anyone with the ability to do so. Pay is not competitive in Canada, and contrary to the common refrain here, taxes/rent/general CoL does NOT make up for this, not even close.

It's not just the taxes/rent/COL. I know three Canadian SWEs whose parents could have easily bought them a nice house or condo in any major Canadian city, if they had wanted to stay. One of them explained it to me this way: the quality of employers, coworkers, and the overall software engineering work you'll do in Canada just doesn't compare to the US. Even if pay/finances were exactly the same, going to the US would…

[deleted]

Re: 84% of Waterloo Software Engineering undergrads move to the US upon graduation

#40

Post by imtringued »

francisl wrote: post #33
redis_mlc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There's a US media narrative that taxes and health care are worse in Canada than the US but: 1) You will likely pay more in taxes in California than Canada. 2) It's easier to itemize self-employment tax expenses in Canada, so you can easily pay half the taxes of the US. (I paid 12% of total income the last year I worked in Toronto.) 3) Everybody I know in Canada is happy with health care, and infinitely happier t…

This is a personal conclusion having work in both, some US and some Canadian based companies. What I realized, the reason we are pay less in Canada, is caused by our perceived value from management. In the American company, the managers want me to succeed because that is directly link to their success. I'm part of the team, I'm accountable, but I had more freedom. In the Canadian one, managers want all the credit (pa…

This appears to be a general problem in politics (both corporate and governmental). The person in charge is surrounded by experts (in a specific subject) but he doesn't listen to them.

Yes, sometimes those experts are wrong or their ideas are not compatible with the general direction of the company and that's where you really want a leader's judgement but the solution to this problem isn't to ignore the expert, it's to find a compromise, verify information by asking multiple experts with differing opinions, make the experts understand the goals of the company.

In theory being a manager is the easiest job in the world. You delegate all your competence away to people who are better than you at the skill you are delegating. So the only challenge is to utilize the value of that competence properly.

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