Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada’s vanishing tech sector

theglobeandmail.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#61

Post by swalberg »

redthrowaway wrote: post #50
xal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you are right but you are looking in the wrong areas of the City. I'm clearly biased, being the founder of Shopify, but we are here to change everything you mentioned above and we have succeeded so far when everyone told us we couldn't. Feel like going for a coffee?

I'm a big fan of shopify, so don't take this the wrong way, but would you really be a good fit for someone with a baby and a mortgage? Currently, he's making decent money, with great pension and benefits, doing incredibly boring work. He could leave all that behind and work for shopify, for what? A couple fun years of lower total compensation without the security? As someone who's finishing up college, I'd hop on tha…

I don't know about working conditions at Shopify but I don't think the same mindset exists in Canada about working yourself into the ground for your startup.

I work for another startup - Wave Accounting. I left a fairly safe, well paying job to come here. I'm paid well, my work-life balance is great, and I love my work. And I have 3 kids and a wife who is in grad school (paying off my mortgage early helped with the decision, to be fair)

As far as the GGP comment, I know a few of the Shopify guys because they have a Winnipeg office and they're brilliant people. I'm sure it would be a treat to work there.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#62

Post by a3camero »

cal5k wrote: post #45
randomdata wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

engineers aren't even on the list of high-demand occupations Probably because there is no demand. My local municipal government was recently looking for someone to maintain their website, which is little more than a simple blog. The job description essentially laid out the job as your basic, run of the mill CRUD application. The kind of stuff kids in high school do for fun. When you read down to the requirements sect…

Absolute nonsense. The only reason that probably got posted was because whoever posted it had no idea what they were doing. Demand for talented engineers in Canada vastly outstrips available supply. Period.

I attended an event in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in the summer with about 50 local developers. At the end they had an informal few minutes where people who are hiring can stand up and pitch. There were a half dozen people from medium to large companies (e.g. Electronic Arts was one of the large ones). They asked who was looking for work and not a single person raised their hand.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#63

Post by realo »

myth_drannon wrote: post #60
realo wrote: post #49

There is a lot of high-tech stuff happening in Canada. Montreal is very attractive to gaming companies, for example. Quebec City is a hub for high-tech optics companies. The Enhanced Full Rate codec for GSM was developed in Universite de Sherbrooke (Quebec): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_full_rate . There is a startup festival next week in Montreal: http://startupfestival.com/ The problem is that all this occ…

Gaming companies in Montreal are a sad joke and represent everything that is wrong with Canadian tech. 37 % of game developer salary is paid by provincial government. Our tax money is given to France's business elites.

And in what manner does this situation prevent high-tech stuff from happening in Montreal, with Quebec talent?

The idea here is that a critical mass of talent is being raised in Montreal.

I agree with you that this is a good example of what is wrong with high tech in Canada: why is it that French investors are willing to invest money in Montreal, but Toronto Investment banks don't?

In what manner are Canadian VC's prevented from doing exactly the same thing as the French?

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#64

Post by xal »

redthrowaway wrote: post #50
xal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you are right but you are looking in the wrong areas of the City. I'm clearly biased, being the founder of Shopify, but we are here to change everything you mentioned above and we have succeeded so far when everyone told us we couldn't. Feel like going for a coffee?

I'm a big fan of shopify, so don't take this the wrong way, but would you really be a good fit for someone with a baby and a mortgage? Currently, he's making decent money, with great pension and benefits, doing incredibly boring work. He could leave all that behind and work for shopify, for what? A couple fun years of lower total compensation without the security? As someone who's finishing up college, I'd hop on tha…

Ok this is super difficult to answer because you only gave me circumstantial information instead of data that I need to make a recommendation. The questions that need answering are:

  * How high is the individuals potential on an absolute scale?
  * Is the current environment providing a steady way to reach this high potential 
    in a reasonable time frame?
If the answer is something like "high,no" then it seems to me that the opportunity cost of not coming to Shopify would be very high.

We are huge on work life balance because this is something that we can do much better in Canada then in the Valley. There are about 5 core hours in the day that we want people to be there ( 11 to 4 ) for meetings. We pay child support bonus, gym membership, catered free high quality lunch every day, we do tons of offsite events etc etc etc.

Now, let me read between the lines. I assuming we are talking about a dev position. The fact is that there is essentially 100% employment for great programmers. That's unlikely to be change in our lifetime. The reasons for that are complex but googling for "Software is eating the World" is a good starting point. Given this, it worries me when people talk about risking their pension and secure jobs. The only thing that's at risk in ones career is to not hit your personal full potential. If you don't agree with that then Shopify will not be a culture fit.

Also: A ton of people at Shopify, including me, have kids and mortgage but.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#65

Post by latch »

I spent my life in Ottawa, including the first 10 years of my professional life there, before getting out. I'm sure everyone has a different perspective, but as a coder, the problem is clearly talent.

Overwhelmingly, programmers are below average. Management are textbook gantt charts and timesheets. It's pretty much the problem that you see throughout the industry, except it's every single company. If shopify is an exception, it's a recent one.

Ottawa is particularly bad because it's a government town. 9-5 is a rule. Lot's of consulting companies. Lot's of certified managers. There's a huge sense of entitlement. The city is geographically large with bad transportation, so you have long commutes (Toronto's no different).

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#66

Post by patrickgzill »

justincormack wrote: post #15

This is fairly true of pretty much every country except the US. Finland had Nokia, now in decline. Germany still has SAP but that's it. The UK has nothing large left, all sold abroad (last one was Autonomy). Most countries have never had a big tech company at all.

Swype is from UK and there are smaller startups clustered around the big name Uni's there.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#67

Post by jaems33 »

potatolicious wrote: post #25
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, when I graduated Waterloo CS in 2007, I remember a sizable portion of the coop board postings were from Google, MS, and RIM, about 20-40 postings each most terms. The pay in Silicon Valley was maybe 25-50% higher than Toronto/Montreal/Waterloo and the weather didn't suck. It would be interesting to see a breakdown from Waterloo of how many postings are in the US vs Canada and how large the companies are. Sort o…

> "The pay in Silicon Valley was maybe 25-50% higher than Toronto/Montreal/Waterloo and the weather didn't suck." I live in SF currently, and recently accepted another job in NYC. Apples to apples, the pay in SF/SV is easily 100% higher than Toronto right now. The gap is even higher in NYC (150%+), though of course, cost of living is going to eat up most of that. With the bubble heating up even more right now, I know…

"There is simply no reason to go back - critical mass of talented, dedicated people. Interesting work. Ludicrous sums of money."

For a while, I had trouble working because of health issues so I decided to work part-time while getting medicated and going through physio.

Much harder to do that in the U.S. without a sort of group insurance. The cost of subscribing to an individual plan with my condition would probably be through the roof.

However, because of socialized medicine in Canada, I had far less financial pressure on myself as my medicine and visits were obviously covered.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#68

Post by prodigal_erik »

xal wrote: post #64
redthrowaway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of shopify, so don't take this the wrong way, but would you really be a good fit for someone with a baby and a mortgage? Currently, he's making decent money, with great pension and benefits, doing incredibly boring work. He could leave all that behind and work for shopify, for what? A couple fun years of lower total compensation without the security? As someone who's finishing up college, I'd hop on tha…

Ok this is super difficult to answer because you only gave me circumstantial information instead of data that I need to make a recommendation. The questions that need answering are: * How high is the individuals potential on an absolute scale? * Is the current environment providing a steady way to reach this high potential in a reasonable time frame? If the answer is something like "high,no" then it seems to me that…

Great programmers are not immune from recessions, bankruptcies, layoffs, hiring freezes, and ramen-profitable rivals. By all means cash in, but don't bet on the music never stopping. I've seen it happen twice so far and I'm only forty. Bank a really healthy runway.

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#69

Post by fingerprinter »

Cyranix wrote: post #42
drstewart wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised you think New York or Vancouver are lower cost than SV. Externalities (housing, cost of living, etc.) are the same or higher than the other places. Talent may be more expensive but that's because that's (by and large) where the talent actually is.

I'm on Vancouver Island, and I hear quite a bit about the housing prices in Vancouver. Random semi-recent article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03...

I'm an American living in Australia right now (Adelaide) and wife and I are thinking of moving to Victoria on Vancouver Island. She's a GP and I'm a geek.

I know the home prices are going to be high, but tbh, it seems Australia is also quite high! If one was willing to live in the suburbs, a bit away from the city, is it really as bad as people say?

Also, how is the tech scene in Victoria?

Re: Canada’s vanishing tech sector

#70

Post by edwinnathaniel »

Apocryphon wrote: post #12

Even within EA, Bioware's not doing too hot as a division, isn't it?

EA (_the_ EA HQ in Burnaby) seems to hire a lot contractors than it used to be.

If I may take a wild guess it is probably due to the nature of their console games being seasonal (and they're not a stranger to medium-to-big size layoffs).

Radical Entertainment recently closed their door in Vancouver as well.

One of the patterns in the gaming industry in Vancouver, as far as I know, is that those who felt more adventurous decided to quit their job from EA and started their own game companies (and thus poached those who are still working for EA). Once they hit "Success", EA may buy them only to either:

1) Lay them off next season

2) They decided that EA is not for them and thus quit their job

... either 1) or 2) start the next cycle...

Post reply on HN