This is a Canada wide problem. Rather, Id even say its a !valley problem. Canadian businesses keep making this weird assumption that theres some kind of market capture but it’s really only true for people who have to stay in the city or country for some reason. The addressable hirable market is the people who chose / have to stay and havent realized being employed by a US business is as easy as switching github organizations and slack teams.
I do think it reflects more of a "not US" than a "not Silicon Valley/Seattle" problem these days. Anecdotally, I've discovered that most sufficiently large companies in the US now recognize and will credibly attempt to compete with the stratospheric Silicon Valley wages for the upper echelons of tech talent no matter where the company is located. For example, I've seen many cases of the Fortune 500, most of which are in inexpensive flyover metros in unsexy States (the US has ~55 metros with at least a million people), offering the upper end of the six-figure range for an individual contributor with exceptional skills. Seeing old, non-tech companies headquartered in Missouri or wherever doing this is a sea change.
For American software engineers, this is a brilliant change of condition. A decade ago, if you lived and wanted to work in the flyover metros, you were lucky to get six-figures at all no matter who you were or what you'd done. These days, big non-tech companies are willing to push toward a seven-figure comp package in flyover country for top tech people, in cities where almost no one makes six-figures. It has been really interesting to see.
I made the same assumption but I think maybe they meant higher end of typical six-figure salaries, as in ~$180-200k. 900k for an individual contributor who isnt a very very particular addition to a team seems a bit high...
Wow, that's good to hear. As someone who would like the option of settling down outside the Bay Area down the road, but wouldn't want to miss out on the opportunities available at top companies in the Bay Area, I'm curious how much and what kind of experience they're looking for in making these offers.
>I do think it reflects more of a "not US" than a "not Silicon Valley/Seattle" problem these days.
Yeah, I agree, I've seen similar high offers in other US regions as well.
And as the US visa policies are becoming more strict, european companies won't have to compete against people leaving for the US, so the Salary/CoL ratio will stay bad over here.
I guess we’re both in the same boat data wise. What Ive seen with my last set of searches is that the valley tops the list in terms of comp. If you take the next top 10 cities things drop off pretty quickly from there. Its not to say “no other place pays as much as SF”. Just on average the salaries are way off.
As someone that regularly deals with comp in all of these cities in the US and globally (unfortunately), there are a small number of cities, like Seattle, that literally go toe-to-toe with Silicon Valley on comp in practice. This was not always the case but it is in 2018. And in the case of Seattle, they don't have income tax either, which makes it brutal to suggest people relocate from Seattle. Hence why Seattle is the fastest growing city in the US.
There may be some areas where the Valley tops the comp list, the kind of software engineering that goes on in cities varies. But for many types of software engineering where Seattle excels, such as core infrastructure code, expected hiring costs are astronomically by any general metric.
These conversations, which appear every time a post appears on HN that talks about what a great place Toronto is (along with many other places in Canada), make me sad.
Sure but Toronto is expensive and they pay isn't very good considering. If it were people lamenting only being paid $300k instead of $400k then we could be like "it's just money!" but I heard when I was there a few months back CAD$120k is pretty typical for a senior dev, which is roughly $90k USD, and the housing and whatnot isn't all that much cheaper than in big US cities.
There is definitely room for improvement among pay in Canada, but it really is an exceptionalist view to base the pay in USD. Especially so because I always see people convert salary in CAD to USD, then not convert the cost of goods and living to USD as well. There are also certain nuances living in Canada that decrease your expenses compared to the US such as decent public transit (unheard of in the west coast), decent healthcare of which health benefits from the company then boost the healthcare quality way higher than what I was able to find in America, and a much more collectivist culture than America which, in my opinion, is the biggest draw to living in Canada.
On the other hand, there are expenses that are higher! Taxes are higher for one as well as the cost of goods such as groceries. Although, the groceries case doesn't really hold because I find that groceries in SV or Seattle to be higher than where I am now in Canada.
The main point I'm trying to make is that is that straight up converting salary in another country straight to USD is a bad comparison of wealth.
Sure, but i found - as you mentioned - groceries, including conversion to USD, to be more expensive in Toronto than LA. Eating out was definitely cheaper. Rent, for an equivalent place in Toronto is, I think, slightly cheaper, but probably not 50% or so cheaper.
You're right that you need to convert both sides of the equation but I still think that all things considered Toronto pay is pretty poor compared to the US.
Expect to be paid 20 - 30% less outside of the city. That's been my experience. Overall I am financially far worse off with an 'affordable' house in Atlantic Canada. Yes I have a small detached home for ~$250k but I have much less money in my pocket with far less capital gain potential.
An extra $35k salary would easily cover a much larger mortgage, and living expenses aside from the mortgage are almost identical.
The difference in rent or mortgage is easily covered by the city weighted salary, but you still have all the other expenses. Living is just expensive wherever you go, there is no escaping it. I made the decision that at 40 I don't want to be in a condo surrounded by traffic and people any more. It's been a bit of an eye opener and a big adjustment to accept the relatively low salary that comes with that decision.
I have worked remotely and been paid very well which has been good, but startups come and go and when I got to the final round of a more stable position with a large corporation they told me they were downgrading my salary offer by a significant amount because of where I lived.
It doesn't really make a lot of sense to compare currency conversions unless you are buying your raw materials in another currency. I'm not really that impacted on a day to day by the exchange rate, unless I'm in the US visiting family.
But with so many great places in Canada, why not choose one that is both great and offers more compensation, the latter of which helps multiply the greatness?
There definitely is, but at the same time, you need money to have a comfortable life for you, your parents, your partner and your children (and then their children).
The wages in toronto have skyrocketed in the last couple years.
I'm looking for functional programming people if you're interested I can pay at least $120k/year and offer considerable equity to work on realtime systems. We're profitable and not funded. We have a couple seats to fill and I'm having a hard time because people in Scala circles are expecting $150k/year in Toronto. Many of my peers are making $150k no problem in the city as full time employees at your average tech company.
If you have elixir or scala experience, like FP, like realtime problems...
Congrats on having a profitable self funded company, and in Toronto, that is amazing.
As an example situation, I'd like in this pseudononymous situation to ask what are the factors and principles that makes $120k/y a reasonable offer for a functional programmer in Toronto?
A consultant earns about $1k+/day, or double the proposed salary, and companies typically pay $1600-2400/day for contractors through an agency, so I'm trying to figure out what makes that $120k/year viable.
Presumably you pay based on what the work is worth to the company (revenue per employee) and what you can find in the market.
If you are getting price takers at that level, that's the market clearing price, then the market is the market.
But if you aren't getting takers, what is the value can you afford to pay for at $120k, but can also afford to not-have that value if it saves you $30k? Is there a revenue-per-employee threshold, or are you reaching a diminishing marginal return on additional developers - which suggests you are toward the end of your growth curve?
The idea that a company can afford to wait two quarters or longer to hold out for a %20 salary savings by waiting for someone to take it suggests that the marginal value of the work isn't very high.
The definition of a shitty job is pretty much one where your work isn't valued, and when you compare Toronto offers to the rest of the market, they are literally advertising, "we will pay you for work we don't value!" Is there a principle at play here, or is it just a straight "take it or leave it," offer?
The saying, "we can't afford cheap things," is why SFBA startups pay so much - because there is too much multiples growth at stake to miss out of it by saving on small things. Do we just not have the same growth upside?
The salary is partly imposed on me as a constraint but we are also offering an unreal equity package vs what I've seen (multiple % in voting shares.) My salary is the same. And it's not low for Toronto. With my experience I know I could make at least another 20k but the equity compensates.
Our team is extremely small so the value of work contributed by each head (given the individual can successfully contribute in such an environment) is very high.
The issue is less finding takers and moreso finding the right takers. I've turned down people who were very interested because I wasn't sure about them. Unfortunately, I have been outbid on hires I was sure about which is very difficult to swallow. I would like to be able to offer at the upper end of the spectrum but the equity does have some value in the picture. I'm sure we could do an either or thing. Like you choose - either more cash or less with more equity. Because not everyone seems to be very interested in ownership. They just want to be paid.
That imposed constraint is the thing I keep circling around.
Somebody says "this is enough," and all the companies seem to agree, except a rare US company that isn't in the loop.
Toronto is universally anchored to that 120 number, and 200 seems taboo. Whatever your company is doing, that's fantastic you can do it in Toronto, as QoL for people is really good, and it has the kind of culture pretty much everyone wants to live in.
There are elixir meetups held by pagerduty.
PagerDuty is moving primarily to elixir and have a large engineering presence in Toronto. Their interview is a bit tough. I know several good devs who didn't make it through the process. It's usually something like two-sum problem (two lists, does a number from one list sum to equal 0 from the other list?) in a 40 minute live coding exercise over the phone.
You can shoot me an email if you want to chat - alayablue -- at -- hotmail.com and I'll reply from my work email address. Let me know if you do send an email - I don't use that account. It's always worth having a chat so please do reach out.
Agreed, I don't even code anymore (I provide business and integration strategy primarily) and have no problem getting $100-150/hr and for 4 years have had as much work as I've wanted.
It's a legitimate argument dang, just not expressed in the best way. The Canadian praries (AB, SK, MB) are rough. The crime rate and suicide rate is much higher than other provinces, especially Ontario, and there is very little to do. It's cheap because people don't want to live there.
I didn't mention the marginally higher average wage (across all industries, not specifically IT, which does not average higher) or population of Calgary. For reference the Toronto metro area has a population of 6.4 million with the Calgary metro area having 1.3. If we're talking about the praries as a whole which the parent was, that also includes Winnipeg and Regina.
I don't see how that contradicts anything else I've said. The average wage in Nunavut is higher than Toronto, does that make it a better place to live?
Saying "people don't want to live there" while at the same time admitting more than 2M people live in a high income area seems to be contradictory, no?
I said 1.3m in the metro area, which includes the population of Calgary. A high average salary doesn't necessarily make the whole of Calgary a high income area either. The average hourly rate of low population places can be easily influenced by outliers, like in the case of Nunavut and several cities in Alberta, contractors doing seasonal work in dangerous trades.
In my growing-up-in-the-prairie attitude, dislike of prairie life, particularly if there are mountains visible off to the west, may reflect a short attention span and chronic cultural overstimulation.
Central Illinois is a big, flat, boring, methamphetamized prairie too, but I'd still rather live in Chicago than on either coast. Most places you could think of wanting to live are surrounded by boring places.
Are they? Would have assumed SF. Didn't think YCombinator had any presence in Canada. I thought dang was a shared account used by multiple moderators as well.
The praries are cold, flat, and devoid of any cities of interest (in the sense that people visit to see the cities).
People do live in cities in alberta, but the cities are mostly car oriented. If you want to live in a walkable area you're mostly out of luck in the part of Canada between Toronto and Vancouver.
There are reasons people really enjoy being in the praries of course, but it really is a serious lifestyle choice you have to make.
I see these posts a lot lately. I've worked in Chicago, Madison, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Des Moines, Hopewell New Jersey and Toronto.
A few points: A "senior" dev in Toronto would be someone with 8-10 years of experience. They can easily make 120+. I've hired many of them. Very few organizations in the GTA consider someone with 2-4 years a "senior", and those people will be lucky to make 90k. That make the COL in the GTA difficult.
If you truly are an amazing developer and you can't get a high salary in the GTA, get in touch.
Also, it would be interesting to see the ages of people who post. When I was in my 20's I'm sure I would have stayed in the Bay area if salaries were as good as they are now. But there really wasn't a _huge_ disparity in wages in the late 90's/Early 2000's between SV and elsewhere. I likely would have left the Bay area in my 30's though. And moving to Canada is one of the best decisions I feel I have ever made, especially considering the last 2 years.
EDIT: As a side note, I think outside of SV, ALL tech salaries (and all other industries)are too low and have been stagnant for the most part for a decade.
As a Canadian tech guy who travels to Silicon Valley and Seattle fairly frequently the impression that most US techies have is that Toronto is an awesome place to live, but it is not (yet) a magnet for top talent.
There are many amazing startups at any given moment in Toronto... but many of the folks involved have their sights set on FANG.
May be Canada can't attract top talent from USA but the best half of the team that worked with me in Brazil the last couple years are now in Canada, Ireland or Germany.
I am not familiar with Toronto personally but it would have one huge benefit over silicon valley...you don't have to live in silicon valley.
Edit: I'd prefer Siberia over sv, there is a reason talented people are getting the hell out of there and many major companies are building huge offices elsewhere.
Is this truly significant, or is it spin to sell a city? Not to be harsh, but I've read the accounts of Canadian expats on the comparatively low wages back home. Not SF low, but low even compared to other cities in the U.S.
Toronto has the best spin department in the world. I never stop seeing listicles with Toronto in the top 3, reading about how great it is a place to live and work, and how it's become a leader in innovation/tech/art/music/film/finance.
I agree. I lived in the Toronto area for about 10 years. I visit regularly still because I have a lot of family there. I would consider moving back too but these fluff pieces as you say do not help. The first thing that is needed for more people who live there to admit there are problems, specifically with low wages (and relatively high taxes too applied at lower levels), I cannot get my friends or family to even realize that because they are still quoting 1990s UN studies about Toronto being the number 1 city in the world to live or something like that, being critical isn't always being negative, if you love a place there should be a desire to improve it, not ignore issues.
The 'low unemployment' bit is funny considering how many underemployed, homeless and in betweens there are. I don't remotely buy it. The economy in Montreal is reasonable but soft. I guess compared to itself in 2001?
Can you quote any hard references, like the post you're replying to? Using your anecdotal method, I can say Montreal has a culture that doesn't expect everyone to simply be job focused, which you may interpret in your own way, but there is a lot of support for low key lifestyles (low cost childcare, co-op ateliers in every neighbourhood, etc) and the cost of living is quite low. Regardless, the economy is doing well, unemployment is low and the homeless population is average for Canada. Large parts of Montreal may be inscrutable to people who don't speak french well (like me) but it's still a great place to live, IMO.
You can easily get a job without French. I know 2 shops that can’t fill positions even with competitive (for Montreal) salaries. One is all English (Wordpress, magneto shop) and the other is large international org. The international org couldn’t even fill the secretary role for 6 month. They ended up getting a student fresh of the school without experience.
I’m constantly getting bombarded with recruiters with good offers.
1/2 salary of Toronto? No way! Montréal salaries are lower, but by 15-20% max. Yet you can buy a condo with a parking spot, in a central location for $220. The cost of living is much lower than Toronto.
I’ve lived in Ottawa, Toronto and now Montreal. Montreal is by far more affordable than the other 2.
Montreal winters are far worse than Ottawa, if only due to the laissez faire attitude taken towards infrastructure and maintenance of the city and buildings - not just government, but landlords as well.
In Canada, salaries for tech seem to normally max out around 100k for developers (with exceptions for working for big US/multinational companies like Amazon, MSFT, etc.). Even 80k is pretty common for senior developers... In Canadian dollars. So around 80k USD is max a Canadian developer can expect to make other than a few unusual cases thrown in there which might go as high as 130k CAD so around 100k USD is a stellar Canadian development salary. If you compare this to how H1B workers are paid in the US, it's around those sorts of rates. I don't see it improving any time soon because the revenue that this work generates is not 10x multiples like you see in the US. Canada does not have the VC culture to support a tech culture that produces 100s of millions to billions in returns. If US companies come looking for remote workers they are looking to pay Canadian rates and save money that way.
100k? You’re either massively underpaid or badly misinformed, or both. Several friends living in Toronto make 120k+ and they’re certainly not senior or management. (All in their twenties). And that’s only for homegrown startups - Amazon, etc pay very respectable salaries, especially when you factor the lower cost of living compared to the Bay Area.
This is also why, as a founder, it's very attractive to raise US/global money but build a team in Canada. For developers for your dollar, diversity of talent, high quality education, healthcare, proximity to the US + ease of travel and immegration from the rest of the world, Canada is a great place these days to start a dev team. It's just so much harder now to build, grow and retain a dev team in SV anymore.
That may be because that is about US$100k at the current exchange rates. A cynic would say that the comp has only gone up because the exchange rate has, since tech tends to be denominated in USD.
$100k CAD is not really the max in Canada. That’s how much small startups are paying to hire developers with around 2 years of experience in Kitchener-Waterloo that tends to be cheaper than Toronto
We just hired someone for around that amount and same level of experience last week and we're a small team of 3 so I assume companies bigger than us will pay more
How easy is it for a Canadian to set up the legalities of doing remote in the trump era ? I have an impression it’s only the big fish (fang etc) who with their legions of lawyers can mow a path down for remotes to begin working smoothly (& legally)
I've been living and working in Toronto since 2003, and can attest that it truly is a fantastic city to live in.
Most of the senior developers I know in Toronto work as independent contractors for large enterprises because they can get paid significantly more than the base salaries mentioned here. Contractor rates rival Silicon Valley salaries.
The downside of independent contracting is that you forgo sick pay, holiday pay, and employee-sponsored perks like extended health care. However, Ontario has an excellent public health system that covers all residents so the need for additional health benefits is questionable.
Hi, I'm a contractor in Québec City work as a Business analyst. Can you tell me what is the hourly rate in Toronto ? And how do you find your clients ? It's my first year of working as a contractor. Thanks.
Depends on your experience/expertise. I typically see vast ranges with more junior people charging $50/hr, intermediates at $80/hr, and seniors (people with decades of business experience) between $100-180/hr.
I sub out work now and then, I'll add an email address to my profile. I'd like to know your skill sets.
Oh thanks for your reply. Here in Québec city consulting companies charge 70-75 for gov contracting, and in insurances companies you can get 80-100 per hour.
Yes add your e-mail adress, we can take the discussion further :)
I'm from Toronto. Congrats to Toronto for its accomplishments.
It should be realized that their is a great standard of living available outside of major tech centers all across the country(s). The opportunity is different, but the jobs do exist. I'd argue that their is far more opportunity outside of tech centers than within. A tech center addresses the issue of distribution. More specifically, of concentration. Having a small cluster of a 100 or so tech businesses conveniently located pales in comparison to the 10's of thousands scatter across the corporate landscape.
Its myopic to measure 'success' with such a short term metric. My measure of success is different at a wholesale level from my 20's to my 40's. Toronto is fantastic for those less than 30. Tons to see and do, easy access to everything. Flash forward 20 years with a family and kids and it's not so attractive anymore. What were once benefits are now become detriments.
That being said, today is my last day at work in my less than 150K population town. I start a new job in 2 weeks, +$$, +benefits etc. Same scenario, smaller location. My compensation is is within striking distance of the wages in Toronto's tech center. But without the heavy cost of accommodations (all else being marginally cheaper) but more importantly, I'm 5 minutes from a entire world of green space and the crushing humanity that is found in all major centers, Toronto included.
As a Canadian-U.S. dual citizen who has spent my whole life in Canada, and most of it in Toronto, I honestly can't justify settling down in Ontario. The taxes are high and complicated, the services are subpar (and I don't use most of them), and Canada largely lacks the civil rights stability enjoyed in the U.S. under the Constitution (as currently amended and interpreted), particularly regarding freedom of speech and the bounds of unlawful search.
This is one of the weirdest posts I have ever seen. Agreed that Canada doesn't have the 1st amendment but it's not like people feel they can't express themselves, unless what you have to say is threatening or offensive. In which case, you usually get away with it anyway. So unless one is a right wing christian that wants to post pictures of disgusting things or a racist that wants to put down other people I'm not sure why one would feel their civil rights were impinged.
If I had more work in Waterloo, Paris, Guelph, etc.. I'd definitely move further west (I'm on the western tip of Missisauga now). But, 90% of my clients are in the city so I have to go in to Toronto 4-5 times a month. Not really worth moving further west yet.
Toronto’s tech talent is keen... but relatively green. Since few companies have had to deal with scaling networks, users and data to the same magnitude as is common with Valley companies, it’s almost impossible to find senior engineers worthy of the title. Plenty of options for junior and intermediate, though.
Yeah. I'm struggling to find really solid engineers in the city. I need really experienced people and I can't find anyone. Even the most sr consultants and contractors have a lot of gaps and don't understand the real edge cases that appear in systems.
I was lucky enough to learn from a team as we went through a google acquisition and watch and learn as the technology was scaled in both the context of a startup, and later inside Google. I was the whitebelt in the back of the room but that experience of working in that team was the most valuable experience I could have ever hoped for and I still regularly mail the people that I absorbed from to let them know how grateful I am to have taken me along on that journey. It's not a common experience but that completely humbled me and fixed my dunning-kruger arrogant ass.
Why live in Toronto for a 90k CAD salary when I can live close to Waterloo and get an 80k CAD salary? Perhaps I'm very lucky, but it goes a lot farther.
A lot of startups, but a significant amount seem very "gimmicky". (Probably less than SV, but it seems there are less companies that "started up" then grew to a significant size). That or you can work for the Megacorps, usually in the suburbs in their lifeless campuses.
Not to mention the salaries.
Also Canada tech companies in general seems to use less open source than USA or Europe.
I'm from Toronto but did 3 year stint in SF and then a 4 year stint in NYC. I moved back to Toronto last year to purchase and settle into my home base. Love it here.
These comments are hilarious and so typical of Toronto - there is a reason it's called the "screwface capital" of the world and I think it really rings true.
