This article doesn't mention one of the major reasons for talent leaving Canada: if you work there, you need to stomach a 50% pay cut in average salaries vs the US. This is true pretty much across the board regardless of tech niche on the 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey[1]:
Machine learning specialist: US 108k, Canada 53k (49%)
Embedded applications/devices developer: US 100k, Canada 53k (53%)
Systems administrator: US 90k, Canda 49k (55%)
Doubling your salary by moving south across the border is a very tempting option, especially considering that NAFTA makes it extremely easy to do so. No need to wait for an H1-B, just show up at the border with job offer & credentials in hand, assuming you've graduated college. TN visas are instant and infinitely renewable.
While I do have a grievance with a much lower pay ceiling across Canada, those numbers are ridiculously low even if in US dollars as I assume they are. I don't put much stock in the StackOverflow survey.
And I'm not trying to be argumentative, but your take on TN visas is extremely simplified. For instance software developers aren't actually allowed to have a TN visa, and instead you have to say that you're a "system analyst". Only they've actually started strictly demanding proof that you're an analyst and not a programmer, etc. Add that any single border crossing can lead to a revocation of your TN visa.
No thanks.
EDIT: Before more people reply with general comments, I am specifically talking about the salary claims for "ML Specialist" and embedded developers. Those numbers -- and I happen to have a good amount of reason to know this -- are ludicrously low. But yes, if you're a web developer, a generalist, etc, pay will be terrible in much of Canada, just as it's terrible in much of the US.
It might be better to look at the US as an outlier here. Those Canadian salaries (esp if they're slightly low based on the other comments here) don't see too dissimilar to what's available in the UK (outside London which has higher salaries for every job due to cost of living).
At the end of the day, those 'low' salaries are only low relatively. They are more than enough for most people and only a reason to move south if your main driver is money. Otherwise they're good enough.
No way those numbers are right. At least not in Toronto. I'm a back end dev with under 5 years experience and you couldn't get me to set the clock on your microwave for $53k.
>No need to wait for an H1-B, just show up at the border with job offer & credentials in hand, assuming you've graduated college. TN visas are instant and infinitely renewable.
This is false. I say this as someone with a TN visa, which I use to visit my employer a few times a year.
The TN application process is onerous and takes weeks to confirm. The actual visa is indeed granted at the port of entry but can be denied - simply having the completed application doesn't guarantee anything. And you have to go through the complete application process every time you re-apply. There is no renewal application.
The best way to get it done is to work for BigCorp, Inc. whose team of lawyers will handle it for you. If you work for a smaller company or are a contractor/consultant, you'll have to hire a lawyer for a few grand. I know because I've been there too.
I recently moved from Waterloo to San Francisco. My salary had doubled in the process, but my living costs have also substantially increased. I live in a 1-bedroom condo with similar square feet; my diet stayed the same, I pursue the same hobbies and similar habits (fitness, education, entertainment). In the end, the higher cost of living offsets my salary increase, and my quality of life stayed the same.
I was an executive at a SW firm in Toronto for almost 9 years (I'm originally from the US).
In order to hire relatively talented people, the salaries were (even in 2007) no where near what you are describing.
When I resigned in 2014 the lowest paid developer on a 30 person team might have been making around $80k. Typically salaries were between $88 and $110.
While there are a large number of Canadians that have gone to the US to work, I regularly encounter Americans in tech that have come here. Sure, it's anecdotal.
My taxes are only slightly more than I paid in Wisconsin, and likely on par with California. And for that I always have some level of basic healthcare, even if I lose my job. Plus, the government tries harder for its citizens here.
The averages are pulled down by lots of mediocre companies. Startups and big places like Google and IBM have salaries that are nowhere close to your numbers. Couple this with taxes here being much much lower than say the bay area, and you are doing really well living here.
Yes, that more or less sums it up. Plus you have fewer job opportunities and career mobility as well as higher taxes and rapidly rising real-estate prices in both Vancouver and Toronto. I think Canadian software engineers are crazy to stay in Canada.
I'm a Canadian software engineer living in Canada, but I'd never consider working for a Canadian or US company here and earning Canadian dollars - it just makes no sense. I work remote only (these days only part-time.) It isn't such a great deal as it used to be for me now that I have to pay Canadian taxes, but it was bloody fantastic when I used to live in Panama and legally paid no tax of any kind other than 7% sales tax.
Not for Mexicans, as I found out the hard way. I tried doing this to come to Canada, but since Mexicans at the time needed an entry visa, I had to leave the country for a month and apply for a work visa in NYC. It was pretty frustrating for me because I read and re-read all the documents I had to read, and everything seemed to say I could just walk into Canada with my NAFTA-relevant job offer.
On the other hand, the Canadian border guard at Toronto was very nice to me, said I had to figure out my visa status and let me in anyway on a 1-month temporary visa, to give me time to go to NYC and fix my visa status.
In my experience, those numbers for Canadian salaries would be ridiculously low.
Also, I'm assuming those numbers are converted to USD. Even if they look lower, you have to consider what kind of lifestyle the salary buys you where you are earning it.
In my experience, the real reason people leave isn't so much salary, as lack of opportunities.
It's an interesting situation. Not difficult to imagine Canadians moving to the US, while immigrants who lose out on H1B visas take their place in Canada.
Of course, Trump has said before he's not a huge fan of NAFTA either, so...
On the other hand, basing your startup in Canada means dramatically lower costs (made even better with programs like SR&ED), while still having access to a talented pool of developers. And yes, there are plenty of people who simply do not want to move South, and plenty of people willing to move North.
Statistics are good for describing populations. Average pay can be a useful metric. However, when looking at what you or I might earn in Canada it is completely useless. I make 4x the average where I live. Salary is very negotiable and often has a lot of variance.
It makes me feel proud that Canada has been North America’s up-and-coming startup center since I graduated from Waterloo over 20 years ago. That's a solid, consistent track record of almost being there.
There has been a story equivalent to that on the front page every few weeks for the last five years that I've been reading HN.
I attribute it to some kind of watch-goliath-fall fantasy. That has been amplified dramatically since Trump got elected. Since then, a couple dozen countries are now supposedly candidates to swipe a lot of tech talent away from the US. Nothing will come of it; even more high-skilled talent will actually make it to the US thanks to reforming the H-1B back to what it was supposed to be. Inbound, substantial corporate tax cuts will increase the power of the magnet luring start-ups to US shores.
The startup scene here in Vancouver is scrappy but really shouldn't be compared to SV in any way, it's just not a fair comparison.
We are, however, woefully under-represented with experienced seed stage investors, as the author states. The few that are here have abandoned seed and pre seed and are exclusively VC, mid to late round investors. Can't blame them, either, as the wins are still few and far between.
Vancity seems to excel at bridging H1B visas for large firms hoping to cycle them into the US once they've cleared. Candidates get here easier and quicker.
We're also a cost effective labour farm, and our devs are happy for the work to help pay for their ridiculous mortgages.
Great city to live in, worst city to fundraise, good place to launch and validate, and really nice for avoiding the noise.
We'll see a unicorn or two in the coming years. They'll just go a much different path than the typical SV startup.
The word is out in the last few years though with any young developer googling Vancouver. Low pay, high cost of living not worth it. Even the founder of Hootsuite wrote an op-ed and the situation is only worse since the 2 years ago he wrote that. Something that pays 125,000USD in SF pays like 78,000CAD here. Condo's are $1000/sqft still.
Rule of "Silicone Valleys" and "Startup Centers": if it is announced in a press release that a place is becoming one of those things, chances are they won't.
A lot of these press releases come from top down incentives, tax cuts, special programs and such that. The problem is they fail to capture all the reasons and causes a startup center is a startup center.
One thing might help is to start war for example and have the Canadian defense ministry invest heavily in war technologies and hand out cash to develop radars :-) or other such non-obvious things.
Vancouver: where senior developers would be genuinely lucky to top out at $90k, a single bedroom on a transit line is $800k, a teardown in a distant suburb is $1.5M, and bottom shelf cheese costs $40/lb.
I don't think a startup scene in a city is ever going to really blow up when sticking around in that city is giving up the possibility of building any kind of future for yourself.
Everybody I know who's worth half a damn moved to Seattle.
----
Toronto: maybe.
Montreal: sure.
The prairies: "Is Fargo the next up-and-coming startup center?"
I grew up in Toronto and have visited Montreal numerous times but only as a tourist.
At any rate I'm very skeptical of the Montreal claims. It is a wonderful place to visit, but all of my Canadian non-native French speaking friends eventually found that their career opportunities were limited and the culture was simply too hostile to non-Quebecois and so they relocated away.
I just want to give my POV on all of this as I have lived in both Vancouver, Toronto, and now in Mountain View.
Everything pointed out in the comments about low pay, and high cost of living in Vancouver is true. However, let's look of it from another angle. If you were a young college grad with options, wouldn't you want to go to sunny California? Not only is it an adventure, there's better night life, better sports teams, the glory of the valley, and on top of that, higher pay. It's really a no brainer for some.
Toronto is definitely a better environment and I can see it blossoming more and more. I know a couple of Founders there and they love it. I would go there myself in the future, except for family ties in the west coast.
I've also been to Mountain View. As a young college grad I would like to live in a CITY, not a sprawling suburban nightmare where half of my day would be stuck in traffic.
The higher pay is the ONLY reason to move to Silicon Valley. It has nothing on Vancouver or Toronto in terms of night life, food, or fun for a college-educated professional.
What bothers me about these articles is that they lay out all these reasons for why a place will be great, or is a great place to start a company, but then why -- in spite of these assets -- does that place not produce like Silicon Valley?
I am not saying Toronto is not a great city to live and work and start a business.
But if it has all these things going for it, why isn't it producing startup value per capita like SV? Doesn't this show that these things are not enough for a startup scene? Or, to put it another way, having startups is not essential for a great city.
As far as Toronto is concerned, nobody grows to the size of a multi-national juggernaut. Everyone takes the buyout/merger/acquisition way before that ever happens. It's often been said, what major multi-national corporation has their headquarters here? Reuters is the only one and they are technically headquartered in New York now.
The companies that get that far will typically come out of other places where they aren't stifled by the conservative VCs/angels eager for an exit like they are in Toronto.
Mind you this is by the same author who wrote : "The Netherlands: A Look At The World’s High-Tech Startup Capital" and half a dozen similar pieces. Often cringeworthy PR fluff written in tourist brochure style.
I saw a poster in my business school building (in the midwest) about "Silicon Plains." Honestly, it'd be so cool if there really were more tech hubs, but the degree of wishful thinking can be almost painful.
I'm not suggesting by this that Vancouver isn't an up-and-coming startup center. Just commenting on the extreme desire I see all around to be like SV.
" Similarly, sub-zero temperatures scare people to warmer areas, leading to a brain drain and serious demand for startup-orientated marketers."
Living in one of the cities, sub-zero might have an impact but I don't think it's the brain drain main reason. For aspiring founder, I think it's more related to insufficient founding. For engineers, I think the very low salaries is more to blame. Even if cost of living is a bit lower, the difference makes no sense at all.
I'm surprised to see how little funding/support there is specifically from Alberta[1], given the oil/gas wealth and the general awareness (going back decades) that they need to diversify their economy.
This article looks like a fluff piece that is pretty thin on actual research.
They talk about how great MaRS is and how much revenue it has generated... but in reality MaRS has been an issue and has had hundreds of millions in bailout money.
This sounds like the typical Silicon-everywhere story. Any big developed country now has a "start up scene", and rightly so. Otherwise they wouldn't be developed. Relatively speaking, all of them are up and coming, as they're all catching up with the original silicon valley.
The only notable and interesting stories are when the articles compare absolute investment amounts, tech GDP growth, IPOs, open tech jobs or other real measurable comparisons. This seems to be lacking any of these deeper comparison to actually non-trivially show how this area is really the "up-and-coming startup center" of North America.
I speak as a founder of an AI company in Vancouver Canada and ran it there for ~1 year - we relocated to US for fundraising and that's another story - but here is my sense for salaries:
* AI/ML Scientists (UBC, SFU) , Typically MS/PhD: C$85K-125K
* Web developers: ranges from 60K (mediocre) to 110K (very good), the exceptional are nearly impossible to find.
* Database/Backend : C$80K-100K for the good to very good talent.
I would expect Toronto to have similar salary ranges, Waterloo and Montreal might be a bit lower.
Seems like Conrad is doing the equivalent of one of those $YOUR_CITY voted best place to live 2017 articles, but instead for entire countries, and specifically for startups.
Not saying he's necessarily wrong about any of this though, I wouldn't know.
So basically because the cost of living in San Francisco is scary, everyone is looking for the next start-up center and assuming it will be somewhere outside the United States. But there are many other cheap places to live in the US, much cheaper than Canada. I guess the current political climate in the US could be a driving factor.
[+] [-] hughes|9 years ago|reply
Machine learning specialist: US 108k, Canada 53k (49%)
Embedded applications/devices developer: US 100k, Canada 53k (53%)
Systems administrator: US 90k, Canda 49k (55%)
Doubling your salary by moving south across the border is a very tempting option, especially considering that NAFTA makes it extremely easy to do so. No need to wait for an H1-B, just show up at the border with job offer & credentials in hand, assuming you've graduated college. TN visas are instant and infinitely renewable.
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2017#work-salaries...
[+] [-] endorphone|9 years ago|reply
And I'm not trying to be argumentative, but your take on TN visas is extremely simplified. For instance software developers aren't actually allowed to have a TN visa, and instead you have to say that you're a "system analyst". Only they've actually started strictly demanding proof that you're an analyst and not a programmer, etc. Add that any single border crossing can lead to a revocation of your TN visa.
No thanks.
EDIT: Before more people reply with general comments, I am specifically talking about the salary claims for "ML Specialist" and embedded developers. Those numbers -- and I happen to have a good amount of reason to know this -- are ludicrously low. But yes, if you're a web developer, a generalist, etc, pay will be terrible in much of Canada, just as it's terrible in much of the US.
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|9 years ago|reply
At the end of the day, those 'low' salaries are only low relatively. They are more than enough for most people and only a reason to move south if your main driver is money. Otherwise they're good enough.
[+] [-] noam87|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgh|9 years ago|reply
This is false. I say this as someone with a TN visa, which I use to visit my employer a few times a year.
The TN application process is onerous and takes weeks to confirm. The actual visa is indeed granted at the port of entry but can be denied - simply having the completed application doesn't guarantee anything. And you have to go through the complete application process every time you re-apply. There is no renewal application.
The best way to get it done is to work for BigCorp, Inc. whose team of lawyers will handle it for you. If you work for a smaller company or are a contractor/consultant, you'll have to hire a lawyer for a few grand. I know because I've been there too.
[+] [-] g2guo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apercu|9 years ago|reply
In order to hire relatively talented people, the salaries were (even in 2007) no where near what you are describing.
When I resigned in 2014 the lowest paid developer on a 30 person team might have been making around $80k. Typically salaries were between $88 and $110.
While there are a large number of Canadians that have gone to the US to work, I regularly encounter Americans in tech that have come here. Sure, it's anecdotal.
My taxes are only slightly more than I paid in Wisconsin, and likely on par with California. And for that I always have some level of basic healthcare, even if I lose my job. Plus, the government tries harder for its citizens here.
[+] [-] tensor|9 years ago|reply
Software Developer $80,947 Software Engineer $96,600
500px https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salary/500px-Salaries-E600778.htm Software Engineer $93,333
The averages are pulled down by lots of mediocre companies. Startups and big places like Google and IBM have salaries that are nowhere close to your numbers. Couple this with taxes here being much much lower than say the bay area, and you are doing really well living here.
[+] [-] eloff|9 years ago|reply
I'm a Canadian software engineer living in Canada, but I'd never consider working for a Canadian or US company here and earning Canadian dollars - it just makes no sense. I work remote only (these days only part-time.) It isn't such a great deal as it used to be for me now that I have to pay Canadian taxes, but it was bloody fantastic when I used to live in Panama and legally paid no tax of any kind other than 7% sales tax.
[+] [-] jordigh|9 years ago|reply
Not for Mexicans, as I found out the hard way. I tried doing this to come to Canada, but since Mexicans at the time needed an entry visa, I had to leave the country for a month and apply for a work visa in NYC. It was pretty frustrating for me because I read and re-read all the documents I had to read, and everything seemed to say I could just walk into Canada with my NAFTA-relevant job offer.
On the other hand, the Canadian border guard at Toronto was very nice to me, said I had to figure out my visa status and let me in anyway on a 1-month temporary visa, to give me time to go to NYC and fix my visa status.
[+] [-] neilk|9 years ago|reply
Also, I'm assuming those numbers are converted to USD. Even if they look lower, you have to consider what kind of lifestyle the salary buys you where you are earning it.
In my experience, the real reason people leave isn't so much salary, as lack of opportunities.
[+] [-] untog|9 years ago|reply
Of course, Trump has said before he's not a huge fan of NAFTA either, so...
[+] [-] macspoofing|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] halite|9 years ago|reply
https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/occupations/computer-program...
[+] [-] nightski|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] accountyaccount|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ganfortran|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bickfordb|9 years ago|reply
Additionally, sales tax is high relative to the US. IIRC GST in Toronto was around 15% when I was there last summer.
[+] [-] empressplay|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TP4Cornholio|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scosman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guyzero|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|9 years ago|reply
I attribute it to some kind of watch-goliath-fall fantasy. That has been amplified dramatically since Trump got elected. Since then, a couple dozen countries are now supposedly candidates to swipe a lot of tech talent away from the US. Nothing will come of it; even more high-skilled talent will actually make it to the US thanks to reforming the H-1B back to what it was supposed to be. Inbound, substantial corporate tax cuts will increase the power of the magnet luring start-ups to US shores.
[+] [-] acchow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nickler|9 years ago|reply
We are, however, woefully under-represented with experienced seed stage investors, as the author states. The few that are here have abandoned seed and pre seed and are exclusively VC, mid to late round investors. Can't blame them, either, as the wins are still few and far between.
Vancity seems to excel at bridging H1B visas for large firms hoping to cycle them into the US once they've cleared. Candidates get here easier and quicker.
We're also a cost effective labour farm, and our devs are happy for the work to help pay for their ridiculous mortgages.
Great city to live in, worst city to fundraise, good place to launch and validate, and really nice for avoiding the noise.
We'll see a unicorn or two in the coming years. They'll just go a much different path than the typical SV startup.
[+] [-] nacho2sweet|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] venture_lol|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdtsc|9 years ago|reply
A lot of these press releases come from top down incentives, tax cuts, special programs and such that. The problem is they fail to capture all the reasons and causes a startup center is a startup center.
One thing might help is to start war for example and have the Canadian defense ministry invest heavily in war technologies and hand out cash to develop radars :-) or other such non-obvious things.
[+] [-] ilugaslifg|9 years ago|reply
I don't think a startup scene in a city is ever going to really blow up when sticking around in that city is giving up the possibility of building any kind of future for yourself.
Everybody I know who's worth half a damn moved to Seattle.
----
Toronto: maybe.
Montreal: sure.
The prairies: "Is Fargo the next up-and-coming startup center?"
[+] [-] rrdharan|9 years ago|reply
At any rate I'm very skeptical of the Montreal claims. It is a wonderful place to visit, but all of my Canadian non-native French speaking friends eventually found that their career opportunities were limited and the culture was simply too hostile to non-Quebecois and so they relocated away.
[+] [-] huangc10|9 years ago|reply
Everything pointed out in the comments about low pay, and high cost of living in Vancouver is true. However, let's look of it from another angle. If you were a young college grad with options, wouldn't you want to go to sunny California? Not only is it an adventure, there's better night life, better sports teams, the glory of the valley, and on top of that, higher pay. It's really a no brainer for some.
Toronto is definitely a better environment and I can see it blossoming more and more. I know a couple of Founders there and they love it. I would go there myself in the future, except for family ties in the west coast.
Just my 2 cents.
[+] [-] deanCommie|9 years ago|reply
The higher pay is the ONLY reason to move to Silicon Valley. It has nothing on Vancouver or Toronto in terms of night life, food, or fun for a college-educated professional.
[+] [-] mistermann|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] startupdiscuss|9 years ago|reply
I am not saying Toronto is not a great city to live and work and start a business.
But if it has all these things going for it, why isn't it producing startup value per capita like SV? Doesn't this show that these things are not enough for a startup scene? Or, to put it another way, having startups is not essential for a great city.
[+] [-] canistr|9 years ago|reply
The companies that get that far will typically come out of other places where they aren't stifled by the conservative VCs/angels eager for an exit like they are in Toronto.
[+] [-] sanswork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesmallestcat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nanite|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtraffic|9 years ago|reply
I'm not suggesting by this that Vancouver isn't an up-and-coming startup center. Just commenting on the extreme desire I see all around to be like SV.
[+] [-] aanm1988|9 years ago|reply
> but many countries of similar stature — G7 nations, for example — dismiss the Great White North as nothing more than America’s top hat
Canada is one of the G7 nations. Or did you mean the other 6 don't care about Canada?
Can you please just not bother writing about my country anymore.
[+] [-] flavoie|9 years ago|reply
Living in one of the cities, sub-zero might have an impact but I don't think it's the brain drain main reason. For aspiring founder, I think it's more related to insufficient founding. For engineers, I think the very low salaries is more to blame. Even if cost of living is a bit lower, the difference makes no sense at all.
[+] [-] gricardo99|9 years ago|reply
1 - https://www.mentorworks.ca/what-we-offer/government-funding/
[+] [-] Deinumite|9 years ago|reply
They talk about how great MaRS is and how much revenue it has generated... but in reality MaRS has been an issue and has had hundreds of millions in bailout money.
[+] [-] moojah|9 years ago|reply
The only notable and interesting stories are when the articles compare absolute investment amounts, tech GDP growth, IPOs, open tech jobs or other real measurable comparisons. This seems to be lacking any of these deeper comparison to actually non-trivially show how this area is really the "up-and-coming startup center" of North America.
[+] [-] ronilan|9 years ago|reply
Vancouver is found in British Columbia (BC), amongst the Rocky Mountains on Canada’s west coast.
Yah. Excellent.
[+] [-] bobosha|9 years ago|reply
* AI/ML Scientists (UBC, SFU) , Typically MS/PhD: C$85K-125K
* Web developers: ranges from 60K (mediocre) to 110K (very good), the exceptional are nearly impossible to find.
* Database/Backend : C$80K-100K for the good to very good talent.
I would expect Toronto to have similar salary ranges, Waterloo and Montreal might be a bit lower.
[+] [-] sheepmullet|9 years ago|reply
It enabled a lot of risk taking.
I don't think you could call any major Canadian city cheap.
So how does it build up an ecosystem? Maybe if all the VCs etc get chased out of the US?
[+] [-] microcolonel|9 years ago|reply
Not saying he's necessarily wrong about any of this though, I wouldn't know.
https://techcrunch.com/contributor/conrad-egusa/
[+] [-] jostmey|9 years ago|reply