$80K CAD is $59K USD, which is not that much different than the original post. $160K CAD = $119K USD is fairly good, but most developers with 17 years experience would take home north of $200K in Silicon Valley (I'm not familiar with other US markets).

All the anecdotes still seem to point to software engineers making more than double in the US. I would love to return to Canada some day, but I'm not likely to do so until the numbers I see people post online start beginning with at least a 2 or 3.

Exactly. A USD 200K software eng simply cannot move to Canada. It is messed up. That is more than a director or higher's salary in a place like Toronto.

If you're living in Canada, you're spending money in CAD. I don't think its fair to convert Canadian salaries to USD to make the comparison. Still, $160K CAD is considerably less than $200K USD.

If you are living in Canada, everything retail is more expensive anyways, so just converting to USD isn't very accurate.

$160k CAD = $120k USD.

And you have 20 years experience? If you are good, you could be making 4x this in the Bay Area. Or more,