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by mabbo 1020 days ago
It's lower, yes, but in Toronto and Vancouver it has definitely improved in the last decade.

Amazon opened big offices in both cities (bias: I was one of the early Amazon people in Toronto) and quickly grew by outbidding other employers on good developers. Then other companies opened offices to do the same to Amazon. Now there's a pretty big dev economy.
2 comments
glitchc 1020 days ago
Top end is not the same as average. Not everyone can work at FAANG and no one else in the sector pays like FAANG. What's healthy is a top end that can afford 90% of housing and a median that can afford 50%. Instead we have a top end that can afford 50% and a median that can barely afford 10%. That's what's out of whack.
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mitthrowaway2 1020 days ago
It's still substantially lower. I know some talented devs who got offers from Amazon within the past couple years, and Amazon's internal HR rules placed a strict comp ceiling on their offer that could be doubled if they'd agree to work from Seattle rather than Vancouver. Same developer, same role, and a very short distance to move. So they moved.
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mabbo 1020 days ago
And yet... the Vancouver and Toronto offices are still pretty big- thousands of devs. And not just for visa reasons.

Canadians want to be in Canada. That's why I moved back from Seattle, knowing it would affect my comp badly.

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