[laurencerowe]

> I can say personally I definitely wouldn't have made it to where I did financially had I stayed in Canada, or it probably would've taken me at least 15 years instead of ~5

This is my experience coming from Britain too, but honestly not sure it's had any great effect on my level of life satisfaction - you can live a pretty comfortable life on software engineer's salary most places. The work available in Silicon Valley is definitely more interesting, but you now work in an office park 30 miles form the city centre and housing has gotten so expensive its driven out a lot of the interesting cultural life.