[_csoo]

>tech companies in Canada pay peanuts

This is because:

- Canadians are happy to accept whatever wages they are given (the "smart" Canadians move to the US to get higher salaries)

- immigrants to Canada are happy to accept whatever wages they are given

With those two factors, you're not going to make a lot of money in Toronto unless you're working a US company (Google, Amazon, and so on) and even then it'll be less than US counter-parts.

Berlin is a better choice because you can easily travel around Europe and there are more markets. It's also a faster flight back to India if you're visiting family.

>However, once a Canadian citizen, there is a possiblity to get transferred to a Silicon Valley arm of a US company from Canada (using the TN visa) and hence receive a higher compensation.

This is what I'm talking about. The employer will dangle this prize in front of you for as long as they can and will continue to hold off on promotions and keep your salary the same for as long as possible. This is why Canadian salaries remain low, because there will be another sucker that comes along and will also be offered the same "we'll give you a promotion in a few years!" or "we'll transfer you to the US soon! very very soon!" line and they'll accept it.

>How would you compare between the two countries for building a career in tech for an immigrant?

Is immigration required? Because if not, all you need is a good internet connection, a good computer, and knowledge lots and lots of knowledge to distinguish your skills from others and get the higher freelancing rates.

[hacknat]

This is changing. I work with Canadian colleagues at a remote-friendly company, and they make the same salary as the folks in NYC and SV, taking conversion into account (most make >200k CD). I also know that Shopify pays very well. Canadian tech is catching up in compensation terms, and the dominoes are going to start following as demand picks up.

[rcastano]

Would you care to share which companies you know that pay equal salaries? I'm close to 200k CAD in total comp working in Vancouver but that's still around 40% less of what colleagues in the States are making.

[kingofpandora]

What does "taking conversion into account" mean? Either they earn the same or they don't.

[omouse]

>Canadian tech is catching up in compensation terms, and the dominoes are going to start following as demand picks up

Slowly changing. The US companies are going to pick up all the talent here.

[nnd]

> This is what I'm talking about. The employer will dangle this prize in front of you for as long as they can and will continue to hold off on promotions and keep your salary the same for as long as possible. This is why Canadian salaries remain low, because there will be another sucker that comes along and will also be offered the same "we'll give you a promotion in a few years!" or "we'll transfer you to the US soon! very very soon!" line and they'll accept it.

After 3 years of being a permanent resizent you can apply for citizenship, and getting one is pretty easy if you work in tech. Companies don't really have that much of leverage on you, especially in comparison with US with a dangling carrot of H1Bs and green cards.

[coralreef]

This is because: ...

Supply and demand. If you're going to compare salaries, look at the number/density of tech companies in the area and the value generation. SV corporations setup offices here in Toronto, but the pay doesn't match up because it doesn't have to. Competition for talent is not as fierce.

There are single buildings in SV that host more "elite" software engineers than other entire cities (how many thousand engineers at a single location like Google/Apple's HQ? What native equivalents does Canada have? It used to be RIM/Blackberry, but now its what, Shopify? The scale matters.)

You're misattributing quality of wages to people being ignorant of their own value, but what you should be attributing it to is plain labour economics.

[__s]

Yep. I was given an offer to work for Microsoft in SF, ended up having visa denied (no post secondary), so sent to Vancouver instead. 75k CAD drop in salary. & Vancouver isn't cheap