Canadian tech salaries are a pittance compared to US ones. In the Bay area, 150K to 250K are standard for people with 5 years of experience. This is not the case in any Canadian city. This neglects the lower exchange rate.
You're way off. 150k for 5yrs experience is pretty typical in big tech & unicorn companies, but not anywhere else. 250k base salaries are highly atypical anywhere (except for very senior engineers). Total comp will be more than that, but if that's what you meant you shouldn't have said salaries.
It's getting bad in Seattle, but there are a couple things Seattle has going for it that Vancouver doesn't. It actually has industry, and more people have jobs that pay living wages. The $15 minimum wage will go a long way for the bottom income bracket.
I grew up in Seattle, moved to Vancouver for school and worked there (software) for a year, and then came back to Seattle because Vancouver just wasn't going to be sustainable for me and my fiance. I'm going to throw numbers around for concrete-ness; I don't mean to offend anyone.
We were renting a 3 bed, 1 bath home with 2 roommates in Vancouver that had last sold in 2011 for $1.6 million that was falling apart. I was working at a very well funded startup (with ~120 people) making $60k CAD. After about 8 months I looked for other jobs (mostly because I just didn't like the work, but the money situation didn't help) in Vancouver, and it was really slim pickings. I interviewed at a few places and really wasn't a fan of what I saw, and was feeling bad about the situation. Then I sent an email to a company (with ~200 people) down in Seattle, and after a really reasonable interview process had an offer for more than twice (2.3x) what I was making in Canada (adjusted for exchange rate i was making 42k USD in Vancouver). My fiance and I talked a lot about it and agreed that the next year was going to be super shitty being apart, because she has a year left of school, but it was going to be a better long term bet. I moved down and it was indeed super shitty, but we're in a better place now going forward. Now we're actually looking at buying a place (because landlords are awful) and it's totally within our budget, when it never would have been possible in Vancouver. She's moving down in less than two months and there are more job prospects for her in Seattle, so the shittiness is almost over, and the future is looking great.
I know it's anecdotal evidence, but the economic differences between Seattle and Vancouver are worlds apart. When a financially stable, educated, white dude like me is having a hard time keeping up in Vancouver, you know it's bad. I can't imagine what it's like for everyone else. It makes sense that people that can leave are leaving, but being able to pick up and leave is a privilege. Vancouver is going to have some very serious problems in 5 or 10 years.
