Often, businesses don't realize how much they are missing until they bite the bullet and hire SV caliber engineers.
Seems every time I'm pitched something about "finding unconventional IT talent" it's about hiring cheaper programmers. There's a whole industry built around paying less for programmers. With questionable results. Hell, Canadian politicians pitched Vancouver as an ideal HQ2 location to Amazon since tech workers are worth ~50K less than in America[0]
Shopify's salaries are pretty competitive. They aren't "Bay Area" levels, but you can also live wherever you want, so your after-housing take home pay works out better.
Amazon Toronto doesn't pay much better than Shopify- I can say first hand.
> but you can also live wherever you want, so your after-housing take home pay works out better.
"After-housing" doesn't really mean anything: buying a house means you build equity into the house which you can later sell (and pocket the appreciation).
this doesn't apply to most junior/mid level engineers who are just a couple years out of college and are still on their student loans / don't have a mortgage / prefer to rent in downtown to be close to local Tinder scene :p
Anecdotally, I know a senior dev who moved back to Canada from SF to work for Shopify.