I made a similar move in BC and went from ~60k CAD a year to ~170k CAD. It's tougher work for the American start up but the pay differential is too big to not take advantage of. I feel like I'm throwing years of my life away to work if I work for a Canadian company.
The work is remote, I still live in the same place, but I've increased my income by 3x, I don't see how I could justify staying with a Canadian company.
Semi-flippant response forthcoming, but if you factor in cost of living differences in their respective local currencies (e.g. moving to NYC or SF pre-COVID), healthcare (pay more in the US), comparable taxes (NYC/SF) to Toronto/Vancouver, then you likely might come out roughly the same or slightly ahead in absolute amounts saved depending on the salary+bonus bumps.
The kicker though is that presumably many Canadians harbour some type of fantasy in their heads of moving back home after N years, at which point the conversion of USD back to CAD can tip the balance. Historically the USD has been worth more than CAD, except for two times in 1974 and 2007.
It gets worse because Canadians that come down for "just a few years" probably end up staying longer since the original logic that drew us down in the first place is likely still valid. Throw on top the overhead and friction of uprooting your settled life (friends and maybe kids) and then it becomes even tougher to go back.
Next thing you know, you're applying for a greencard and the rest is history.
Quite frankly the "all your money will go to healthcare" meme doesn't really apply to the kind of person who's leaving Canada for a much high-paying US tech job. A person like that will in all likelihood be working for an employer that offers access to equal or _better_ health insurance than they would have access to in Canada. If it's a big tech company the employer will pay virtually all of the premiums beyond some token amount, and out-of-pocket maximums are dramatically lower than the incremental pay raise. And even if the employer didn't pay that, the premiums would still be dwarfed by the pay raise.
Rent is certainly higher in the Bay Area, though less higher now vs. a year ago, and even so, at the income levels we're talking here (especially if going to FAANG or a unicorn), there is very little chance you'll end up with less disposable income after rent and health care.
If you want to buy a property, you have your work cut out for you since real estate is insanely expensive, though. It's not too hard if you're a dual-income high earner couple but very hard otherwise and will take a number of years of savings. This is worse than the Vancouver/Toronto housing markets, but it's less worse than you think given how crazy they are now.
The work is remote, I still live in the same place, but I've increased my income by 3x, I don't see how I could justify staying with a Canadian company.