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.