[andrew749]

The difference might be even more extreme than that. I still am in school (University of Waterloo) and am going to an internship which pays ~110k USD, whereas in Canada I could maybe hope for less than half of that. All my peers aim to go to the valley just because of this HUGE pay gap.

Edited: Granted every time I've worked in the valley, housing has been exorbitant, but still makes it worth my while. The most I've seen people pay in SF has been ~2k if you don't want to share a room.

[sGatling1788]

You are not factoring in costs that will one day materialize.

Believe it or not, one day many people decide they want to have kids. To send them to a decent school in the U.S. costs money. I've seen $10k for K-12. That's 13years of $10k per child. So 3 kids = $390k U.S. That's $U.S. dollars and after taxes.

Then there will be a day where you get laid off. The AI/ML industry will suffer a downturn at some point. In the U.S. your severance will be tiny (?2 weeks salary?), whereas in Canada it will be a minimum of something like a month plus 2 weeks per year of service - but often much more than that. So 10 years of service will be provide 24 weeks.

Vacations - in the U.S., 2 weeks seems common, but many Canadians enjoy 4-5 weeks of vacation.

Then there's the increased crime and violence. Guns in particular. In the U.S., if you want to be as safe as Canada, you need to live in a gat ed community. Those ain't cheap.

[andrew749]

I definitely agree that Canada has a great social safety net and is a better place to live. Those costs you mentioned do add up. I will most likely be working full time in Canada because of those reasons. The vast majority of peers though might not because of the UPFRONT lack of competitiveness from Canadian companies.

Correct me if I'm wrong but is it not the purpose of taxes to fund these services. I actually had to pay Canadian income taxes this year in addition to US taxes, even though I had no income in Canada. I totally understand and accept this as it helps maintain everything that is great about where I live.

I'm not seeing how valuing an Engineer less solves the issue of funding social services. If anything a higher income for an Engineer would mean that they would be paying more in taxes to also fund those services. Does an Engineer in Canada not provide the same financial benefit for the institution where they work, compared to if they were to work in the US? I feel like there are set income brackets that companies have established that have not been modernized to adapt to the changing marketplace. It just so happens that being a competent Computer Scientist is a valuable skill at this point in history because of the potential upside they can provide for a company and companies are not acknowledging this.