The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#61

Post by nekojima » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 7:05 AM UTC

rll wrote: post #56

One thing nobody has mentioned is also that most Waterloo students come out of there with more money than they had going in. No crippling student loans to deal with. Co-op terms aren't just great experience they also pay quite well. (Unless things have changed, I graduated in 1993 and this was the case back then)

I graduated in the mid-90s from UW and I can say from my classmates and friends from a variety of faculties most had $20k+ loans to repay (though that first year after a lot was forgiven by the govt program).

At that time, in the mid-90s, the majority of students weren't in co-op at UW. Even those in Math, CS, Eng, Sci and Actg who did get co-ops usually it was at breakeven or a slight net positive for the experience, given the extra expenses of travel to Ottawa, Toronto or other cities with accommodation, plus 4-month rentals in KW were more expensive than 8-month.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#62

Post by potatolicious » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 7:07 AM UTC

wwhchung wrote: post #48

wavephorm wrote: post #23

But there's no venture capital in Canada so it's nearly impossible to build a large tech company. Most successful Canadian startups sell out early because they know they'll hit major roadblocks. No capital plus a monopolistic telecom industry backed by government makes for a particularly hostile environment for small companies. Example: Kik got sued by Research in Motion IMMEDIATELY after receiving venture funding. T…

Hi there. While I agree with some of your points, i.e. issues with certain large companies being anti-competitive in the startup environment rather than being supportive, and the fact that the tax incentives offered could be better structured to be more accessible to technology startups, I still think Canada is a great place to build a company. Why? Well: 1. Canada does have great tech talent. Finding them is a bit m…

> "Finding them is a bit more difficult, but talent retention is much better."

As an employee this seems alarming to me. My impression of the Canadian tech scene is that you've got a small number of innovative companies with great work environments amidst a sea of sweatshops and incredibly mind-numbing code outfits. When your alternative is that, of course retention is better.

For an employee it means you've essentially got them over a barrel. Don't rock the boat, don't ask for too much, because it's this way or work at some soul-sucking enterprise shop on Bay St.

I'm not sure I can ever return to an environment like that, where my employer holds all of the cards and I hold practically none.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#63

Post by potatolicious » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 7:13 AM UTC

rll wrote: post #56

One thing nobody has mentioned is also that most Waterloo students come out of there with more money than they had going in. No crippling student loans to deal with. Co-op terms aren't just great experience they also pay quite well. (Unless things have changed, I graduated in 1993 and this was the case back then)

UW engineering tuition is through the roof now. It's so bad now that I'm not sure what I would've done had I had the unfortunate luck of being born 3-4 years later. Breaking even with co-op is out of the question for a lot of students, though it still helps a lot.

After all, without co-op, for most UW engineering programs you're now looking at $40-45K tuition + living costs + supplies/books... A $80-90K loan is not at all out of the question.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#64

Post by jbarham » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 9:34 AM UTC

wwhchung wrote: post #51

jbarham wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $100k base salary in Waterloo adjusted for cost of living would be like an $180k base salary in Mountain View. Um, no. Even though SV is a high-cost location in a (relative to the U.S.) high-tax state, personal income taxes are still substantially higher in Canada. Housing might be somewhat more in Waterloo than in SV, but the net take home at the end of the year would still be higher. Assuming you're married and c…

Actually, here are the 100k tax rates for Waterloo, Ontario, Canada vs. SF, California: Waterloo: 26% Federal + 11.16% Provincial = 37.16% http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html San Francisco: 28% Federal + 9.3%x(0.72) State = 34.7% http://www.efile.com/tax-rate/federal-income-tax-rates/ https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/catxrate_exmpt07.shtml Once you get above 174k/year, it's sill similar, with: Waterloo:…

Health care is a given in the U.S. if you're making that kind of salary so for me it was always a non-issue.

Try re-calculating the tax rates if you have a non-working spouse (as was my case since I was on a work visa) and you're significantly better off in the U.S.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#65

Post by rcfox » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 12:22 PM UTC

shazow wrote: post #31

_napw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before graduating from Waterloo, I had the opportunity to work in three different countries (Canada, USA, Japan), on everything from web services to embedded C. While I was a good student, and I doubt that I would have had any trouble finding a job with or without co-op, getting the breadth of experience was incredibly valuable - this would be something much harder to get after graduating. I generally dislike competi…

Alright, I am convinced that Waterloo students get more joy out of doing four four-month jobs than Toronto students get out of doing one eighteen-month job. What I'm not convinced of is the resulting value-add to the student's career. The way I see it, the best things you can do to your career, in order of bestness: 1. Graduate as quickly as possible while freelancing summers, get the best job you can, quit after 18…

I can only speak for myself, but my 4-month coop terms are the only reason I managed to graduate. I studied computer engineering at UW, and it was more intense than anything I've had before or after university. I definitely would have burned out by third year without my coop terms.

It also helped that coop paid for everything: tuition, rent, food, etc. (Although, I don't smoke/drink/do drugs/drive/have expensive tastes...) I graduated with a net (albeit tiny) profit instead of the massive debt most students seem to end up with. An 18-month placement probably would have been financially equivalent, but I would have had to take on debt before my third(?) year to benefit. Judging from my friends in other programs, having money troubles or taking on jobs while in school is extremely stressful.

(Aside: One could argue that since I admit to struggling to get through without frequent rest that I am under-prepared for work, but having been in a full-time position for some time now, I can see that university was artificially intense. Nobody in "real life" expects the same rate of output. Although, now I feel somewhat under-challenged because I had just managed to get used to the amount of effort required to do well by the time I graduated!)

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#66

Post by ekosz » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #63

rll wrote: post #56

One thing nobody has mentioned is also that most Waterloo students come out of there with more money than they had going in. No crippling student loans to deal with. Co-op terms aren't just great experience they also pay quite well. (Unless things have changed, I graduated in 1993 and this was the case back then)

UW engineering tuition is through the roof now. It's so bad now that I'm not sure what I would've done had I had the unfortunate luck of being born 3-4 years later. Breaking even with co-op is out of the question for a lot of students, though it still helps a lot. After all, without co-op, for most UW engineering programs you're now looking at $40-45K tuition + living costs + supplies/books... A $80-90K loan is not a…

Is that per year or for the whole degree? I was living in Waterloo and the students I talked to were paying $5-$15k a semester. To put that in perspective for an American, at RIT I was paying $40k a year + all of those living expenses.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#67

Post by wwhchung » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 2:52 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #62

wwhchung wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there. While I agree with some of your points, i.e. issues with certain large companies being anti-competitive in the startup environment rather than being supportive, and the fact that the tax incentives offered could be better structured to be more accessible to technology startups, I still think Canada is a great place to build a company. Why? Well: 1. Canada does have great tech talent. Finding them is a bit m…

> "Finding them is a bit more difficult, but talent retention is much better." As an employee this seems alarming to me. My impression of the Canadian tech scene is that you've got a small number of innovative companies with great work environments amidst a sea of sweatshops and incredibly mind-numbing code outfits. When your alternative is that , of course retention is better. For an employee it means you've essenti…

I'm sorry that you feel that way, but let me clarify that statement a bit. Finding them is difficult, not because people don't want to work here, but Canadians are usually the ones more willing to work at Canadian companies, so the overall tech talent pool is a bit smaller to work with. In the US, you've got people from all over the world vying for positions. Canada has to present itself as a technology hub to attract more international talent.

Retention is better, not necessarily because there is a lack of innovative companies. In fact, there are definitely a a number of great companies to work for in Canada that aren't the sweatshops that you mention (and I would like to count ours among the innovative and great places to work).

The retention aspect is more about the mentality of people in Canada when they join a startup. In silicon valley, there are A LOT of companies, and every week it seems like there's some hot new startup. Given that, a lot of tech people there have the mentality of hopping from company to company just to maximize their own short term gains. We personally don't feel that that type of employee behavior is healthy.

Compare this to another area in the US which has a healthy tech scene, but WAY better retention. Seattle. There are definitely a significant number of tech companies there (Amazon, Google, Facebook, MS, etc.) with great working environments. But the reason retention is better there is because it's a bit further away from the silicon valley hype.

Similarly, in Canada (Vancouver), we try to offer something very similar. Great work environment, competitive compensation and a general good tech place to work. As employer's, we will NEVER hold all the cards (heck, all our guys could go get a job at any tech company in the world, including silicon valley). It's just that the people we've managed to find up here have been more focused on long term growth potential than short term gains.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#68

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #62

wwhchung wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there. While I agree with some of your points, i.e. issues with certain large companies being anti-competitive in the startup environment rather than being supportive, and the fact that the tax incentives offered could be better structured to be more accessible to technology startups, I still think Canada is a great place to build a company. Why? Well: 1. Canada does have great tech talent. Finding them is a bit m…

> "Finding them is a bit more difficult, but talent retention is much better." As an employee this seems alarming to me. My impression of the Canadian tech scene is that you've got a small number of innovative companies with great work environments amidst a sea of sweatshops and incredibly mind-numbing code outfits. When your alternative is that , of course retention is better. For an employee it means you've essenti…

This is, for whatever it's worth, exactly what the tech scene in Ann Arbor Michigan was like, and I'm reasonable sure the management at the (relatively enlightened) company I worked for in A2 knew it.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#69

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jan 09, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

wwhchung wrote: post #67

potatolicious wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Finding them is a bit more difficult, but talent retention is much better." As an employee this seems alarming to me. My impression of the Canadian tech scene is that you've got a small number of innovative companies with great work environments amidst a sea of sweatshops and incredibly mind-numbing code outfits. When your alternative is that , of course retention is better. For an employee it means you've essenti…

I'm sorry that you feel that way, but let me clarify that statement a bit. Finding them is difficult, not because people don't want to work here, but Canadians are usually the ones more willing to work at Canadian companies, so the overall tech talent pool is a bit smaller to work with. In the US, you've got people from all over the world vying for positions. Canada has to present itself as a technology hub to attrac…

I'm always wary of the sentiment that "good-fit" developers at location-foo or company-bar don't think it's [healthy,smart,reasonable] to [optimize,maximize,consider] "short term" gains. Across the whole industry, especially if you discard the few gigantic outliers like Facebook and Google (but really either way), long-term loyalty to startup-trajectory companies is rarely paid off. You take the gains from equity and spread them across the years of employment and end up with a track record of bonuses that look good (only very rarely "great") but have a built-in survivorship bias that hides the extreme risk the developer took relative to other options.

Personally, I think the pendulum has swung too far in the "invest yourself with your company" direction, too far away from the "pay attention to your own bottom line, because you're the only one who will" direction. Developers should be more conscious of their short-term bottom line, not less. Developer interests are almost never aligned with that of a company's owners.

Like it or not, if you're not willing to move out of town on a moment's notice for your next job (ie, if you're over 27 or so), working in a market with fewer attractive employers is worse than working in a market with lots of them. It is a real disadvantage. It's not an emotional thing and it's not something you can paper over with mindset.

(Incidentally, all the things that make taking a job in a "backwater" market make starting a company in a backwater market more attractive. Talent is sticky. Every major market, whether it's first tier or third tier, has amazing talent that can't move because nobody is going to relocate their 4th and 6th grader kids to another state for an employee #8 role at a startup.)

All that said, Montreal is a beautiful city. I'd look for reasons to work there if I could.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#70

Post by potatolicious » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 7:21 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #68

potatolicious wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Finding them is a bit more difficult, but talent retention is much better." As an employee this seems alarming to me. My impression of the Canadian tech scene is that you've got a small number of innovative companies with great work environments amidst a sea of sweatshops and incredibly mind-numbing code outfits. When your alternative is that , of course retention is better. For an employee it means you've essenti…

This is, for whatever it's worth, exactly what the tech scene in Ann Arbor Michigan was like, and I'm reasonable sure the management at the (relatively enlightened) company I worked for in A2 knew it.

Hilariously enough, I'm currently working in a satellite office of a company based out of Ann Arbor Michigan... I'm pretty happy with how things are run so far, but there's always the thought that maybe things are only great because of how mobile I am, and the worry that if I make myself immobile things will take a turn for the worse.

I've seen it happen to people more talented than I am...