Many of the Israeli startups are structured as dual US-Israeli companies with sales and marketing in the bay area and R&D in Tel-Aviv. Canadians could pull this stunt a lot more easily, since the geographical distance timezone and culture are much closer to the bay area.
I'd also wager it's harder for consumer-focused companies to take off in Canada: geography and our small population work against gaining scale. It's much easier for a US company to gain scale and move North. To do the equivalent, a Canadian company would have to learn to become global fairly early.
Oh, and, apropos of nothing, Canadian management talent is poor.
However, on the ground, tech professionals are 'forced' to start up their consulting companies, get hunted down by taxes, threatened daily with outsourcing initiatives (extremely low caliber), and have no prospect of career advancement. Either this or accept a meager pay.
Why wouldn't they look elsewhere?
Canada is a joke when it comes to software salaries. For the last 10 years, you'll get $110K tops as a senior dev. In 2009(?) I had an offer for $110K. Last year I had an offer for $100K. Haven't made a Canadian dollar since 2007, but figured I'd try.
If anything, Canada should be an offshoring panacea. We are among the best educated, most creative, stable countries in the world and our developers are stupid enough to work for peanuts.
Yup. I moved to Europe directly after my undergrad and was offered the equivalent of 90k CAD for a junior position. And I was entitled to 20 days paid vacation per year, by law. Not Paid Time Off (PTO) like they have in Canada.
Get sick? Go to the doctor and stay home. It's not vacation (since you're sick) so you keep your vacation days. I've heard if you get sick while on vacation you can reclaim the days, though that's never happened.
I've thought about moving back occasionally. But if I took my current European contract to any Canadian employer I'd be laughed out of the interview.
Besides, it's nice here. Nearly the whole continent is <3 hours away by plane, so there's always somewhere new and interesting to visit with your copious annual vacation ;-)
I eventually ended up in a small university town on the east coast. Great combination of low cost of living, walkability of the town, many cultural events, and other things that allow a small town to punch above its weight in terms of general activity and things to do.
I'm generally surprised, looking at the cost of living in some Canadian cities, like Toronto and Vancouver, that more people don't seek out interesting towns with lower costs of living--especially for remote workers.
All the numbers you quoted are for mid tier in SF. Yes cost of living is higher here, but the salary taps out quite a bit lower.
Three of my colleagues own houses in San Francisco. Multiple of others own homes in Oakland or San Mateo. None of us are very special people, in other words just normal ICs and people who work hard, but not endlessly.
To work as a Senior Dev in Toronto means topping out at 160k. To work as a senior dev here in SF means starting at 210k and only going up from there. That's more than cost of living differences can cover.
As far as I know, for all domestic students tuition is still free (unless it's a private university).
In my experience compensation in the US (comparing major cities to major cities) is 2-5x higher than in Canada. I'd hazard a guess and say I'm right now making 4x what my job would be paying in Canada.
Another big problem is that cost of living continues to rise in Canadian tech hubs - Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are all astronomically expensive relative to compensation, and costs continue to rise rapidly. Despite some upwards movement in recent years in tech salaries, the COL increases have often outpaced it.
To Canadian employers who are serious about reversing the brain drain: you have to find ways to pay talent more, everything else is just details.
I'd love to come back to Canada and pay taxes to Canada instead of the US.
But won't happen unless the $ is there.
You should be making in between £500 and £700 per day.
It's not that bad.
Best offer just prior to moving was £45k but that involved a move to London which would have hit my bottom line more than just staying put.
Toronto rents are about half London and other living costs are lower (electricity, transit etc).
As of March 2019 the UK won't be Europe anymore ;-)
There doesn't seem to be a huge difference in salaries between Germany and Canada, at least on average.
https://www.daxx.com/article/it-salaries-software-developer-...
Salaries vary wildly across Europe (and probably across different areas of the same country), if you get to choose, move to Switzerland :)
It doesn't, but it does have implications for visas and freedom of movement between the UK and continent.
> if you get to choose, move to Switzerland
Sure, I hear salaries there are amazing. But have you visited? It seems the cost of living is INSANE.
As far as I can tell, all of the money in Europe is either in Switzerland, or in contract work which is pretty much the same situation Canada is in, just replace Switzerland with the US.
It depends on the location. That's probably about right for Berlin, but would be ridiculously low in Frankfurt/Munich/Hamburg/Köln. If you want a better idea of salary ranges, check the expat forum Toytown Germany. [0]
It also depends on the company and your negotiating skills. I've had job offers in the low €50k from companies in Berlin for a normal position.
> Ignoring currency conversion
Why would you ignore the currency difference? The Euro buys you a lot more than the Canadian dollar does, even factoring in higher VAT in Europe. I also find the cost of living is lower in Germany than in Canada. Food is certainly much cheaper, and my general impression is that housing is also cheaper (to rent).
€50k = $72k CAD
You probably won't make this as a junior developer in Canada, and if you do, it's probably somewhere like Vancouver or Toronto where the cost of living is very high.
From a visa perspective, it's so freaking easy. Take a copy of your university degree, and your employment contract from a German company.
Go to the Foreigner's office (Ausländerbehörde) and get a work visa or Blue Card, depending on your salary level.
Took me 6 weeks to get a work visa. Total cost was around 150€.
From a cultural perspective, it might be difficult. There are a lot of companies who will hire people with only English (especially startups, though expect less money) but the society is very German.
The language isn't terribly easy either, so you'll probably have to invest in language courses to learn it. Unless you are very self-motivated and good at self study.
If you're American though, things get a lot harder. Lots of banks here won't deal with you because of FINCEN/FBAR, and you have to file IRS taxes every year (and from what I hear from friends, they're too complicated to manage yourself). It can still be done, but is more difficult due to taxation requirements.
That's not how prices work. Labor isn't a consumer good, wages aren't determined by the employer, they are determined by the goods they're eventually producing which the end user or consumer is willing to pay. If they pay less than what end user is willing to pay, then they lose labor to competition, if they pay more, than the increased price of the final good results in consumers going to the competition.
Canadian employers can't control the fact that their consumers don't pay higher prices for the things they producing/providing.
I disagree with your logic, because:
1. Multinational companies pay Canadian engineers doing the same quality of work much less than American counterparts. The original article is from the former CEO of BlackBerry, a multinational company which could pay Canadians an equivalent salary, if they chose to.
2. Canadians do pay more for things than Americans do. Do a currency conversion from CAD to US and products sold in Canada (e.g. iPhone) are still significantly more expensive than US prices. We joke this is the "Canadian tax"
So tell me why don't multinational companies pay less to their American engineers, the same as their Canadian engineers?
> Canadians do pay more for things than Americans do
I oversimplified when I said "paying higher", it's more about profit margin. So lets say if a market is located in a much more geographically difficult area then people of that market could be paying more, but still that wouldn't result in higher profit margins when compared to a market which is easier to access.
These restrictions could be geographical, economic, political, regulatory, etc or a combination of these.
Because their American engineers would get better offers from other companies and leave?
I think it's pretty simple: Canadian companies feel like they don't have to pay American market rates for people, when Canadian market rates for the same position are much lower. They can't do this AND complain that employees are being poached by American companies who pay them more.
Either accept that by paying "market rate" in Canada you're in real danger of having employees leave to work in America, or pay your Canadian employees an equivalent salary to what they would make in America and they're far less likely to jump ship.
https://github.com/bsurmanski/TorontoSFTax
Torontonians pay less tax for income up to 200k. Note: I also did not include the SF 1.5% income tax in the comparison.
And then look and see if the taxes are actually higher in Canada.
It's way different if you're in Alberta (flat provincial tax) vs NY than for example Quebec (biggest tax burden in North America) vs FL for example. Those things do need to be considered.
In my case, the difference between Quebec and <insert any state> was a no brainer.
However, attempting to switch jobs, I find the gelid pace at which recruitment works here incredibly frustrating. People take weeks to reply. Sometimes they don't reply at all. When I visited SF I got offered an interview + a job in a single day.
Companies need to pay more, but currently they're failing at more than just that.
I'm so tired of hearing this complaint.
This is often stated as a problem, but the simple fact is that people can move to almost any other developed country and make as much or more than they would make in Canada.
Canada doesn't have a problem with talent exodous, they have a problem that Canadian employers are stingy and then complain when all they have left are people willing to settle for half they'd make in the US, or 2/3rds of what they would make in Europe. [0]
Here's a free tip for any Canadian employers reading: want to have Silicon Valley level talent at your company in Canada? Open your wallet. People are more than happy to stay in Canada if you pay them what they're worth.
[0] Anecdotal evidence, I'm Canadian, living and working in Europe. I make as much as people 10 years older than me make in Canada. Taxes are similar, cost of living is similar, social benefits are similar, and 5 weeks paid vacation (real vacation, not PTO).