I just can't believe tech companies in Canada don't realize/aren't willing to just pay the price for top engineers. Like, how can they be such cheapskates? One day I'll start a company in Waterloo and address this problem.
Which Canadian tech company makes money hand-over-fist like Google, Facebook and Apple? The motivation to pay more for talent is to make more money... but Canadian tech companies 1) Do not make all that much money (with exception of Shopify) and 2) Don't believe that they will eventually make all that much money after hiring more.
>Don't believe that they will eventually make all that much money
That is a pattern I've noticed in Canada in contrast to the US in fact; We settle for "good enough" or "profitable" but not the "moonshots" or strive to be "the best".
Whether in tech, business, or even global influence, we are a "middle power" and we seem happy about it (my high school politics teacher explains that this is a result of constantly being the US's little brother). This makes me immensely unhappy, and I hope to make Canada more ambitious one day.
The main problem is investment. You just don't have the investment capital in Canada that you can get in the U.S. I'm not just talking tech, but throughout the economy. Lots of successful Canadian SMEs get bought out by Americans because there's no one here who has the balls to invest in them. In many cases, their (head) offices are moved to the U.S., further reducing the economic impact they had here and making the U.S. economy stronger. Canada is a perpetual SME incubator feeding the U.S. economy.
As a recent immigrant to NZ this annoys the hell out of me. Excellence should be rewarded and strived for, but people prefer comfortable mediocrity, because then they don’t feel like they’re underachieving.
I'll try to self-analyze and hopefully shed some light:
I moved from India (Mumbai) when I was 10, to grow up in Vancouver. I've previously worked in NY, and I now work in Seattle (you can guess where), but think about moving back to Vancouver all the time to live a life of "mediocrity" and "underachieving".
In both India and America, the mindset is "If you're not first you're last", but my mindset after growing up in Vancouver: "I don't need to be first, I just need to hold my own and stay with the pack". For some reason (unclear how/when/why I learned this) growing up in Canada: 1. I learned to feel guilty for my successes (lol make it go away!). 2. I learnt very quickly, that getting one rank higher at something competitive keeps getting exponentially harder (i.e. I'd be less happy). To sum it up: Its not just about victory, but the balance of effort to victory, and the happiness from being a part of a community that counts.
However, its hard to reconcile. The Indian/American mentalities in me, especially about career, are very much a part of me. I think I compromised on "I don't need to be first, but should be at least 1 or 2 std deviations above median". As a result, I don't work in NY or SF, I live in Seattle, for the money but have a great work life balance, thinking every now and then if its it the right time to move back to Vancouver.
Vancouver sounds quite different from Toronto. I see very little of this mentality among Torontonians. They do however enjoy complaining about lack of opportunities in Toronto.
Same situation and your appraisal is completely consistent with my experience. Working at some supposedly leading agencies has only served to horrify, to the point I've started reverse interviewing employers on ComSci fundamentals to ensure I'm not working somewhere totally hopeless.
I'm unsure if the New Zealand education system is behind its European counterparts or if I've just been unlucky but I'm curious to find out. I won't be applying for residency.
I'm sure one could make the argument that if it wasn't the US, it was Great Britain's influence as well. Canada was always second-rate compared to England and they never let us forget it. It's ingrained into the psyche of all Canadians in some way.
Hey now. The US asked [the Canadian provinces] to join them. They were completely happy trading furs and being second place, well before the US' existence.
I don't think this holds water since Amazon engineers in Vancouver, five hours north of Seattle, experience a 30% pay differential from their U.S. counterparts. The simple fact is that quality Canadian engineers will accept jobs for lower pay. I expect that over time, the software engineering market will demand higher pay.
I hope OP does start that company in Waterloo to kickstart the whole process.
My primary point was "The motivation to pay more for talent is to make more money" (quoting myself). Companies won't pay top dollar if they don't think they will make more money by hiring top talent (#2 above), or they don't have the money to afford the top talent (#1 above), or...let me add #3:
Companies won't pay more for top talent if they can acquire that talent for cheaper (which happens when there is no competition for that talent). Tho #3 is kind of a metafeature - the ecosystem needed for #3 to be satisfied requires many companies that all satisfy #1 and #2.
Even the big companies pay less in Canada. I love my home but I am making 3x the money as an intern than I would as a full time dev in Toronto. Unfortunately I cannot stay.
Huh, could you share the rough numbers? I'm shocked to hear this.
Even In India Google/MSFT pay atleast 25k$ annually to new hires (not including stocks), Purchasing power wise that is around 100k$, right where the US salaries are.
US interns get paid around 6-8k a month, let's be generous and say 9k$. Are you saying that as a full time dev you could only earn 3k$ a month? Looks like you could earn more as a garbage truck driver?
I am not the person you replied to, but US$3000 is about CA$4000 or CA$48000 per year. For a junior software development position, that does seem to be in the ballpark of what gets offered in Canada.
On the higher end, I'm told 120K seems to be quite upper end for senior development -- this is near Toronto. That even at AMD, getting over 120K was very hard and rare - that's just $90K USD.
I've been looking over the past few months. CA$50000 for a "software engineer" is a very commonly advertised number. Those appear to be the junior positions to be sure; I have also seen higher numbers (mid level seems to be around CA$70000 with some senior positions around CA$90000), but I cannot write plausible applications for most of those as I am not really a "software engineer" even though I have often been called on to write code. However, adjusted for inflation, CA$50000 is still well below what I started at straight out of university ~15 years ago.
Companies here just can't afford it. Canada's economy just isn't what the US economy is. Not only that, but income after the cost of living and taxes is just much lower. That was put on display recently when farming subsidies came to light, which essentially doubles the price of food for Canadians. (There are actually pizza restaurants smuggling US cheese into Canada.) So even if they could compete with salaries, it's not going to get you as far in Canada. As much as they try to patch things up with subsidies like IRAP, it's way too little to combat the drawbacks. Unless there's a drastic change in policies, Canada will never be able to keep talent in.
If it's anything like companies where I'm from, they'd love to pay correct global market salaries but they just aren't printing as much money.
Maybe Canadian companies are different, but companies in Slovenia simply can't pay their engineers 150k salaries even if they wanted to. So many people move.
