Your table is conveniently lacking the salary ranges I've been offered from over a dozen higher paying companies in the city...
In fact, not a single company that pays well whom I've talked to is on your list other than Amazon and Microsoft (Whom will pay a whole lot more if you point the spread out to them).
I am planning on converting this data to website that will keep track of what tech employers are in the city. Kind of like HackerBatch but just listing companies, not delivering job postings. (Also, it will be available to the public, not just UBC/SFU students. You won't have to get 50 students from your school to sign up like with HackerBatch, either.)
For the moment, I'm protecting the sheet so I have a stable source from which to work. Stay tuned...
> Software Engineers in Vancouver make ~US$45,000 a year...
Which is $60K CAD. If you get roommates, rent can be $600-1000 (again, CAD)/month. Health insurance is $72/month, single-payer, and increasingly being 100% covered by tech companies. You don't have to worry about a car if you live downtown, and transit is good enough that living downtown isn't your only option if you don't want a hellish commute. (e.g. Hastings-Sunrise, Metrotown, New West)
If you get roommates your rent in SF will be ~$2800 CAD, meanwhile you're earning $220,000 CAD a year and your other expenses are pretty much the same as Vancouver.
No way Vancouver is more affordable than SF (if you have to work in tech for a living).
Depends on what you're talking about. Vancouver has cheap rent compared to SF rents, but houses are more expensive than SF and Vancouver wages are no where close to what people in SF are paid. It is one of the most unaffordable cities in the world in that regard.
It's much, much less affordable there than Seattle or SF, trust me.