Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto

Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ChuckNorris89 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @04:23AM (#31407465)

>you open an office in Canada because it’s cheaper.

Or, to hire international tech workers who you can't bring to your US office for visa reasons.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by bin_bash on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @04:38AM (#31407574)

Yes, this is right. Big Tech is mostly focused on Canada and EU because they can hire people from (chiefly) China and India without H1-Bs.

According to a director I spoke with it’s because they can’t find enough qualified engineers, not to save money.

Seems we should just be opening more offices in Hyderabad, I don’t know why that isn’t done more. Political security maybe?

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by freyr on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @05:05AM (#31407746)

Google is currently building its largest non-US office in Hyderabad.

https://m.economictimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/go...

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by stingraycharles on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @05:39AM (#31408035)

Of course, if you offer more money, you’ll get a larger pool of candidates.

I agree that there is scarcity on the market, but unless a company is really paying top salaries for their devs, they really cannot say that it’s not money.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by boringg on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @07:38AM (#31408972)

Theres a natural cap of talent in a lot of cities, the more you offer only takes from another company instead of bringing more people into the pool. The time to get trained and enter the market isnt instant.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by bin_bash on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @06:02AM (#31408212)

I made about 650k last year and I'm not even staff-level. I don't think paying 750k is going to attract anyone new.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by mdm12 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @07:29AM (#31408888)

At that point, you would think there would be some introspection with respect to the hiring process and the possibility of an alarming number of false negatives occurring due to absurd leetcode gauntlets. But, naaah...

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by bin_bash on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @08:13AM (#31409338)

I completely agree

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by vostok on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @07:40AM (#31408984)

It might attract me. I work in a non tech role because, at the time I thought that tech paid less than my chosen industry.

If I had known that I could make $750k in tech then the gap is small enough that the improved work life balance and lower stress might have tipped me to tech.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by cwaffles on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @09:40AM (#31410423)

What kind of career are you currently in?

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by granshaw on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @10:08AM (#31410881)

Guessing medicine

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by freyr on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @03:27AM (#31420115)

Guessing finance.

People in finance make a lot money and fantasize about having another job. People in medicine make a lot of money and play golf.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ChuckNorris89 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @08:17AM (#31409388)

>I made about 650k last year and I'm not even staff-level

Holy cow, how is that possible?! In my European country staff level goes up to 85K. That's insane.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by bin_bash on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @08:36AM (#31409601)

Part of it is luck in how my RSUs got priced in and stock appreciation. I won't make anywhere near that this year because of how poor the market has done. It'll still be over 400k though.

Have a look at https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,Facebook,Google&track...

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ramraj07 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @05:03AM (#31407734)

Because it’s even harder to hire good tech workers in india now? Europe and Canada have far more talent at far cheaper price right now.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ChuckNorris89 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @05:36AM (#31408006)

>Europe and Canada have far more talent at far cheaper price right now.

Depends, it's not just about the employees salaries. Some EU countries have pretty high taxes and high worker's rights so big tech actively avoids them.

So in the grand scheme, Indian offices might yeld better return on their investment.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by Cthulhu_ on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @08:12AM (#31409320)

High (income) taxes isn't an issue for "big tech", even with the taxes the compensations they offer in the US are a multiple of what the average software engineer earns. Worker's rights is people telling on themselves, I don't think 40 hours / week and ~25 days off a year is unreasonable. No vacation or long hours just means people will do less at work.

Anyway I know of plenty of people who landed remote jobs at US companies, or US-based companies opening offices within Europe. I mean most US companies operate through Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg anyway because of tax evasion.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ChuckNorris89 on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @08:14AM (#31421794)

>High (income) taxes isn't an issue for "big tech"

Except high taxes its an issue though but for the company's taxes, not the employees' taxes. You even said it yourself later ["I mean most US companies operate through Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg anyway because of tax evasion"] it just so happens that the countries with low corporate taxes also have low income taxes and countries with high corporate taxes usually also have high income taxes.

There's a reason why all big tech in EU is parked in those countries with low taxes and simple laws like Luxembourg, Ireland, Netherlands and not in countries with high taxes and complex laws like France, Belgium, Austria, etc.

And no, most big tech don't really hire EU-wide remotely outside of their HQ country and a few select other countries since we have no standardized EU wide corporate and workers' laws so a lot of EU countries get left out due to their stricter laws.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ramraj07 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @05:43AM (#31408065)

Not sure if you know what the ground realities in India are. Absolute unadjusted tech salaries are higher than in Canada or EU. And retention is really hard. EU workers have more rights so to speak but not clear to me how either of us can tell that’s still a dealbreaker.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by ChuckNorris89 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @07:01AM (#31408638)

I know and I wasn't contradicting you. I was saying that despite EU salaries being lower than Indian ones for the FAANGS, they might still prefer to expand in India and not the EU due to the EU's higher taxes, higher privacy and higher workers' rights.

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by somehnacct3757 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @05:01AM (#31407716)

Canada timezones are more desirable

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by nikanj on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @06:19AM (#31408335)

The Canadian government does all sorts of background checks on the workers, many of which be illegal for Google to do directly

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Re:Microsoft Opens New HQ in Toronto by curiousgal on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @04:26AM (#31407488)

I thought that was standard all over the world but then I worked in finance in Europe, American banks pay literally twice as much as European banks in Europe.

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