gabbo

Not sure what you mean by non-Indian green cards exactly, but just to clarify, the waiting time for EB2/EB3 green cards for those in India is really dramatically behind everywhere else (final action dates are a rough proxy for "waiting time" but actually understate the problem): https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

From this list:

  Chinook Therapeutics
  Element AI
  Repare Therapeutics
  Enerkem
  DalCor Pharmaceuticals
  Verafin
  Fusion Pharmaceuticals
  Stormfiser Biogas
  Hootsuite
  North

Element AI was acquired by ServiceNow, North was acquired by Google. Both were widely seen to be overhyped underperformers. Element was acquired for roughly the $200M it raised in financing. North also raised about $200M over its lifetime and was reportedly acquired for around $180M. Not really value creation.

Chinook Therapeutics merged with Aduro Biotech and is now headquartered in Seattle. It's publicly traded as KDNY and is worth ~831M CAD.

Hootsuite is kind of stagnant. It has been on and off being close to being worth $1B since 2014, hardly a growth story.

Verafin was purchased by NASDAQ for $2.75B. A good exit, though it took nearly 20 years to get there and now it's just another Canadian office of a US tech company.

I don't know enough about the cleantech/pharmaceutical angle, but if this list is the best we can come up with, it's far from cause for the software industry to celebrate. My feeling on articles like the one you posted is they're mostly superficial cheerleading.

From https://medium.com/@lawrencekhov/narwhals-and-unicorns-where...:

  Despite investing the second most into venture capital amongst all OECD countries, Canada is producing the least amount of unicorns. Not only that, of the unicorns it produces, valuation are also the lowest amongst the group (to be fair, the sample size is tiny. Plus, Canada’s unicorns are generally really new compared to that of other countries, which may have opted to stay private for a variety of reasons). For an ecosystem that is by most metrics, really well funded and really strong, the number of narwhals and unicorns that it produces is disappointing. In terms of creating billion dollars startups, Canada is ruthlessly inefficient compared to the likes of Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Beyond the QIIP, there are a whole host of provincial nominee programs where provinces can set their own criteria that are different from the federal government: https://moving2canada.com/provincial-nominee-program-pnp/

Yes. Absolutely. It so much more than makes up for lost government benefits.

Health insurance working for a decent US tech company generally requires some out of pocket, but the amounts are really quite modest. Premiums are typically mostly paid by the employer and not considered part of your compensation. If you're single you'll probably pay nothing for insurance premiums and potentially up to a few thousand out of pocket if you're a heavy user of health care, and maybe $5k in the absolute worst case (and the out of pocket is often tax free). If you've got a family, you might pay a couple thousand per year in premiums and $10k in out of pocket maximum. These numbers are honestly chump change for people who are earning $50k-250k more, with better career prospects and more high paying employers to choose from if a particular job doesn't work out.

Quite frankly the "all your money will go to healthcare" meme doesn't really apply to the kind of person who's leaving Canada for a much high-paying US tech job. A person like that will in all likelihood be working for an employer that offers access to equal or _better_ health insurance than they would have access to in Canada. If it's a big tech company the employer will pay virtually all of the premiums beyond some token amount, and out-of-pocket maximums are dramatically lower than the incremental pay raise. And even if the employer didn't pay that, the premiums would still be dwarfed by the pay raise.

Rent is certainly higher in the Bay Area, though less higher now vs. a year ago, and even so, at the income levels we're talking here (especially if going to FAANG or a unicorn), there is very little chance you'll end up with less disposable income after rent and health care.

If you want to buy a property, you have your work cut out for you since real estate is insanely expensive, though. It's not too hard if you're a dual-income high earner couple but very hard otherwise and will take a number of years of savings. This is worse than the Vancouver/Toronto housing markets, but it's less worse than you think given how crazy they are now.

This may be true in parts of Europe, but it's not so clear cut in Canada. We have a decent tech job market in our 3 major cities (Montreal/Vancouver/Toronto), but it's mostly bad elsewhere. There are a few lower-tier Canadian cities which are OK (Waterloo, Ottawa), but as cities they're grossly limited compared to where you can live in Europe.

Of the 3 major Canadian cities, only Montreal could be considered affordable to software engineer. Vancouver/Toronto are extremely expensive vs. local pay. Unless you want to sign yourself up for a punishing daily commute or bought your house a long time ago, it's hard to describe the standard of living as "very comfortable" other than compared to lower earners in the local market.

Tellingly, when you look at the data more than 100% of Toronto's population growth comes from international migration. Which makes sense, it's a very welcoming place. But without immigration, the city would have shrunk by 50k people last year (~1.5% of population).

Not exactly. There are fewer linguistic, cultural, and immigration barriers when comparing Canada/US vs. Europe/US.

This is Canadian culture in a nutshell, especially politically: it's better to aim small or not to try at all than it is to really go for it and fail.

If you've been following Toronto politics for long, you'll realize this move from Tory is just another in his (and Toronto's) long history of poorly-delivered half-measures which come well after other major cities have already turned the corner.

I would not laud the city for "making some real changes" as much as I would criticize the mayor for being a stale, retrograde leader who is clearly in the business of delivering the barest possible minimum solution only after made to look like a fool.

Wake me up when he applies any pressure whatsoever to Toronto Police over their alarming lack of traffic enforcement and takes less than a year to support like the Bloor bike lane.

How is the compensation?

I'd love to hear what sort of job a UK new grad would get at Google that would pay them more than their US equivalent. Every data point I've ever seen has shown Google UK employees are paid a lot less.

I know a lot of Google US employees who work 40 hour weeks (plenty who work more but usually by choice), their sick days don’t come out of their vacation allowance at all, and after 4 years of working there they get 5 weeks of vacation per year on top of 12 days of paid holidays.

Even Amazon employees do pretty well, getting 2 weeks paid time off + 1 week of "personal days" (de facto vacation days) in year 1, then that goes up to 3 weeks PTO + 1 week of personal days starting year 2 IIRC.

The Canadian tech industry doesn't give you the same opportunity and quality of life as the American tech industry can, unfortunately. COL in Toronto is high, pay is middling, transit is limited, and the jobs are comparatively anemic. It's no wonder so many engineers leave. Canada has a lot of other things going for it, though.

And not just S&P, also FTSE Russell: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-27/index-pla...

This is a big deal (in a good way, IMO). Companies have a very real disincentive to go public with a shareholder-rights-unfriendly listing now, since a large portion of the passive investment universe will be prohibited from ever buying.

I see this as a case where everybody wins: the default option ends up being friendly to shareholder rights, but if you really want to and are in an advantageous position you still have the option to list go public with non-voting/less-voting shares if you want to gamble.

You make much more than $130k-$160k as an engineer at Amazon, Google, and Facebook in San Francisco or Seattle. H1B salary data is salary only, but stock and cash bonus are significant on top of that. At senior level, $240k-$300k for a dev is common for any of those companies. Growth beyond "senior" level to make $100k+ more than that is also not uncommon if you're ambitious, because the large tech companies have career ladders which supports the progression.

Re: your other points.

Health care is likely on par or better in the US for engineers working at Amazon/Google/Facebook (granted, you're SOL if you lose your job, so this has value; in the USA you're entitled to buying your last job's insurance for a period of time after leaving and getting the same coverage, which is probably enough to tide you over in a hot labor market like we see now, but this may not always be the case).

Commute time varies. A software engineer in Toronto can afford to rent somewhere with a good commute, and rent is reasonable for how good of a city Toronto is (the new rent control rules seems likely to privilege current renters by having future renters subsidize artificially below market rent, so it's very possible Toronto rent will climb significantly in the future).

But even if you're paying double the rent in SF (or similar rent in Seattle), the pay still puts you ahead. If you want to buy in Toronto on a software engineer's salary somewhere with a good commute, you're already priced out unless you're looking at condos (you're on the verge of being priced out in SF too, it's Seattle which is the standout here). Hopefully that'll change with years of continued wage growth and a decline in the value of Toronto property.

That doesn't negate your very valid points re: work/life balance, inclusion, and culture (though I think the American west coast is closer to Canada than you give credit). But IMO, if you're able/willing to get one of those sorts of jobs in the US, you have more/better options than in Canada.

So then it comes down to what sort of financial/lifestyle sacrifices you're willing to make to be in Toronto and what sort of familial/cultural gains you get in the process. It's completely valid to prioritize that over money, but arguing the pay is close after factoring in cost of living is disingenuous and problematic. I hear a lot of Canadian tech employers (and, amazingly, employees) use this reasoning to justify lower salaries.

My sense is the more ambitious Canadian engineers and/or those with high earnings potential will be drastically better off in the US (financially speaking) because the upper end of compensation and access to job opportunity is so much higher, but beyond that it's significantly murkier and highly dependent on personal circumstance.

Still very limited job opportunities compared to US tech hubs, but the cost of living is indeed not out of control.

The biggest problem there is you have to be OK living in a place like Waterloo, which is great if you like suburbs and want lots of space, not so great of you're into city living.

Your point is 100% correct, but IMO that link understates Seattle earnings potential. Probably doesn't include equity/cash bonus, which will happen a lot in Seattle and not so much in Vancouver.

Big tech company jobs in Seattle are extremely common, and a big tech company job in Seattle will pay you much more than $126k/year USD when you include stock/cash bonus.

Especially a few years into your career. If you're willing/able to be a dev at a big tech company, $200k-$300k/year is absolutely normal 10 years into your career (often much sooner). If you're great, $300k-$400k is completely possible.

Toronto housing has to come back to reality at some point. Rent and ride it out if you can, consider Montreal if you can find a good job and are OK with French, otherwise if you can stomach being away from home you're much better off financially as a dev in the US.

One can hope :). TBH, absent Amazon Toronto paying unexpectedly well and having great work (or a Toronto real estate collapse), it sounds almost like going to work for Google in Waterloo and somehow making that work sounds like the least bad option in the GTA.

May I ask where you chose to go instead? I don't see much which is exciting in Toronto (bad money, uninteresting tech).

I'm not sure the average Google software engineer according to Glassdoor is representative enough of Google software engineers who would be buying housing that it's valid basis to make assertions about housing affordability.

It's extraordinarily unaffordable in the Bay Area and none of my friends there (at Google, Facebook, or elsewhere) would say it's easy, but I don't think $400k is the right number to pick even if you're conservative about affordability.

Google has been hiring extremely heavily over the last 4-5 years, and their HQ gets tons of early 20s fresh university hires. So I'd expect that $160k number (which I see as $166k?) to be skewed down a bit. Anyway, fresh early 20s university hires aren't likely to have the savings, stability of personal situation, or desire to buy property.

You're probably looking at more established engineers as buyers, and they'll have been able to save longer and advance in their careers, and $160k + the standard 20% down payment is probably on the low side for that.

Glassdoor's numbers don't change much when you bump up the experience, and I'm afraid I don't have sources other than my fairly extensive social network at large Bay Area tech companies, but I can pretty confidently say 3-6 years out of school that yearly total comp number will be $200k+ and if you're saving properly without 6 figures of debt you'll have upper 5/lower 6 figures saved to put down on a place.

$700k is still a stretch, so I think your point still stands, but I don't think you need to be a dual-income Google/Facebook/etc. software engineer household to afford it.

> One interesting thing I noticed is that some housing markets don't really go down that much, they just stop growing. I can remember the home my parents owned in Toronto. They sold it for $325K in 1990. In 2005 I looked up the price and it was about the same. Adjusted for inflation, the it was a price decrease.

This isn't actually what happened in Toronto, to be clear. There was a huge housing boom (especially condos) in Toronto in the late 80s, followed by a bust. >100% gain in real housing prices between 1985-1989, then a 40% drop between 1989-1996. What you saw was a housing collapse which took until the 2000s to recover, not a flatlining.