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Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

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Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#91

Post by twic »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #12
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. Another 2x? 3x? 4x? Why make us guess? It's valuable info that helps inform people's decisions for the future. Thank you for the datapoints.

2x of silicon valley and then bonus on top, but that required moving into finance. It also helped that my previous employer was Apple, it opened many doors when it came time to interview. The fact of the matter is that other industries are starved for talent. If you can keep up in silicon valley, where all anyone talks about is technology, you will be godly in a different marketplace with more capital flow. Finance i…

The last remark is baffling. There is no shortage of bad ideas in finance. GS collections isn't one of them.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#92

Post by lmm »

MichaelGG wrote: post #76
sk5t wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean they're self-satisfied enough to write themselves a framework, but too myopic to see that writing it is a massively misguided waste of time?

Maybe it's because I don't know Java, but the complete separation of interface for "ImmutableBagFactory" and an implementation "ImmutableBagFactoryImpl", and the fact you need a factory for an "ImmutableBag" in the first place... seems like very poor design. Even if it is common in Java (?).

Given that constructors can't conform to interfaces, if you want to be able to pass a constructor around you pretty much have to do this. I agree it's probably overkill, but if you wanted really strong compatibility guarantees I can see how this would make sense.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#93

Post by turnip1979 »

personZ wrote: post #39
9oliYQjP wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick to SRED is to hire an outside expert who will work on contingency to get a percentage of the SRED rebate they generate. There are many companies providing this service. These folks are experts on writing the necessary reports/forms given your engineers have written detailed logs of their work. Don't try to do SRED yourself. It's just one of those things, like hiring a lawyer, where it's complete lunacy to d…

The trick to SRED is to hire an outside expert who will work on contingency to get a percentage of the SRED rebate they generate. This is the scam of SRED. It is unfortunate that we are at this place. There is absolutely nothing difficult about SRED (it is absolutely no more difficult than any other completely banal corporate submission), beyond understanding the magic terminology and phrasing that will get your subm…

+ 100. I find it revolting and scammy that tech companies have to get outside "consultants" to help fill out the paperwork. I've heard stories where some consultants worked for the program itself in the past. How can Canada piss away so many tax dollars is beyond me.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#94

Post by michaelochurch »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #7

One of the worst things about tech in Canada is that the salaries are ridiculously low compared to the US. I made 2-3x as much by moving to California and then another integer coefficient greater than one when I moved to New York. But really, I want to say this: as a Canadian, I find that image of poutine extremely offensive. What is that yellow stuff on top, Curry? Are those even proper cheese curds? They're not mel…

Where in NYC did you work? Are you in finance?

One of the reasons I'm bearish about NYC's future as a tech hub is that, although Manhattan cost of living is extremely high, engineer salaries still seem to have the $150k ceiling, except in finance. Which means you'll have plenty of under-30 talent but few long-term, highly experienced engineers.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#95

Post by rfrey »

doctorwho wrote: post #77
brennanm wrote: post #23

A lot of the talk is on SRED credits. SRED is a large part of the credit program for startups in Canada. Though it's not as simple as "Canada pays 80% of your salaries" You can get up to (off the top of my head) 75% of salaries paid back on hours worked "advancing technology". That means it's only for true R&D. That means UI, business logic, API, App anything, expenses, costs, etc... don't count. It's only for when y…

As someone who has actually used the SR&ED program for many years, I have to say that you've got it a bit wrong... SR&ED will cover a percentage of capital expenditures essential to the work and a percentage of $ paid to contractors so it's salary plus SOME eligible expenses. Salaries make up the biggest part though. I got about 65% back, using the proxy method - a simpler way of calculating SR&ED overhead on eligibl…

They've recently removed the ability to claim capital equipment. My experience, which is probably less than yours, is that the R&D requirement is real and omnipresent - anything that's spent on production or that will go into production can't be claimed. Furthermore I've been asked for lab notebooks and experiment designs to justify the materials I used that I claimed were for R&D purposes.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#96

Post by tormeh »

api wrote: post #3

It'll be interesting to see how well this works. Silicon Valley did not pop into existence from nowhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

Wow. Really cool. The Silicon Valley essentially started as a defence supplier network during the cold war centered on Stanford.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#97

Post by michaelochurch »

turnip1979 wrote: post #93
personZ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick to SRED is to hire an outside expert who will work on contingency to get a percentage of the SRED rebate they generate. This is the scam of SRED. It is unfortunate that we are at this place. There is absolutely nothing difficult about SRED (it is absolutely no more difficult than any other completely banal corporate submission), beyond understanding the magic terminology and phrasing that will get your subm…

+ 100. I find it revolting and scammy that tech companies have to get outside "consultants" to help fill out the paperwork. I've heard stories where some consultants worked for the program itself in the past. How can Canada piss away so many tax dollars is beyond me.

I think this is an overreaction. Why? Let's be honest. If you're the stereotypical 150-IQ, borderline-Aspie tech co-founder, you're going to have to find a business co-founder with connections. He's going to take a huge cut, and you're going to do more work. That's just how the system's set up. Then you deal with venture capitalists, who can pretty much set terms unilaterally because of their inappropriate and collusive influence over what everyone else thinks of you and your company.

If I'm an entrepreneur in need of capital, I'd rather pay a 10% tribute to someone who knows the paperwork than the current 90+ percent tribute (to people who can make introductions, people with sales skill, makers of reputations) of Silicon Valley.

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#98

Post by michaelochurch »

maaku wrote: post #57
clubhi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to live in Canada.

Why the downvotes? Seriously that's why the incentive exists. Not enough skilled people wanting to live in Canada.

Many immigrants prefer the US over Canada because (a) there are major benefits to the US passport, and (b) there are unexpected prestige factors. In some parts of Asia, Canada still has the stigma of being "for people who couldn't get in to the US" even though, for the past 20 years or so, it's been as hard to get into Canada as the US (if not harder).

If you take away New York and Silicon Valley and the unique opportunities those places offer, the appeal isn't living in the U.S. It's having an American passport.

All that said, I think there are plenty of skilled people who'd live in Canada. You see the same thing in the U.S. Midwest. There are a lot of smart people who'd love to stay in, or move to, Chicago and Minneapolis. But the job markets aren't nearly as strong there, so they move to the coasts, settle down, and never return.

Properly deployed, programs like this can change that (although it tends to take a long time).

Re: Canada's Pitch to Tech Entrepreneur: We'll Pay 80% of Your Salaries

#99

Post by michaelochurch »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #30
jgh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can vouch for the 2x from Canada->California, I'm making more than 2x what I did in Canada (Toronto) now. I don't know about the 3x or 4x, maybe sillysaurus was making like $30k in Canada before, or maybe he's just some kind of superstar that gets paid $250k/year.

60k/yr to 180k/yr are not unbelievable salaries for a junior Canadian moving to a now more senior position at a big silicon valley tech company.

Silicon Valley companies tend to downgrade you in position for the simple reason of not being from there. That person would get a salary bump, but it'd be to another junior role around $100-120k. The money improves, but the job position degrades.

I found it obnoxious and annoying, and it's one of the reasons I'll probably never move to that cesspool. The idea that I should have 5 years knocked off my career because I came up in New York (which is a far better city than San Francisco, and far less expensive relative to opportunity and urban amenity) is one I just can't accept.

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