Ask HN: Where are the good jobs in Canada?
The biggest difference is they are much less willing to take a chance on people with only 3-4 years experience like me. On paper I don't have a whole lot of experience, but I've been obsessed with technology since I was very young and HAVE learnt a lot. In the right jobs, given responsibility, I have done more than people my "level" would typically do in a more conservative place. But I didn't realize just how special that is to SF - it seems like companies in Canada still treat software engineers as interchangeable cogs with "X years of experience/knows Y technology, does not know Z" stamped on their forehead.
I'm willing to move anywhere within Canada. Can anyone recommend companies and locations with a more optimistic/SF-ish culture willing to take a chance on passion & talent? Or even how to find places like that?
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadIf possible please post your LinkedIn profile.
Solution is to either work for US-based consultancy OR for US-based company remotely or move to USA.
Alternatively - build your own business.
As a Canadian salaried employee you'll be facing high taxes, shitty pay and shitty weather (albeit Vancouver weather maybe a bit better).
You say that, and it's probably true on average, but I'm making 33% above the average salary for my province. Granted, I don't live in one of the "big" provinces and competition for tech jobs is not as high as it would be in hotspots like Vancouver/Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal.
Granted, I'm making less than an equivalent job in one of the big tech hubs in Canada, but the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in the bigger cities as well.
The pay in Ottawa/Montreal is a disgrace compare to USA/SV.
If you need to stay close to vancouver for family reasons, go work in seattle and get a nexus / global entry card and drive to see them. Cheaper rent, cheaper everything and much higher pay. As a person working in software, your health plan will be better than or equal to the Canadian system for your family and you'll still come out ahead $$ wise.
If your stuck in canada due to some visa snafu, maybe google waterloo then?
Rent is not cheaper in Seattle. Salary will make up for it if you are a programmer, though.
Then search for Canada within the page.
If AR / VR is something that interests you, come to one of the events at the Cube and you'll be able to meet some of the companies in that space.
Hosting companies also.
There are a few fintech low key, but ambitions startups. Recently a fintech accelerator Holt was announced. I feel like Montreal is going to be a fintech hub for Canada in the future.
Airbnb is building a huge office here. Not sure if they will have engineers, but I imagine they would as I think the announced capacity was 400 people.
There’s a lot more. Just not enough time to list.
https://www.shopify.com/careers
Bonus, you get to work on something that's actually important for the economic future instead of making people click on ads that they don't want to see or growth hack their last drops of free time away.
Step 1: Go to https://vanstartupweek.ca/. It's next week. Maybe you can still volunteer and get in for free if you want. Step 2: Talk to people! It's a very business-focused crowd there, so your skills are both hard to find and in very high demand. Step 3: Pick a company. They tend to range between "nonexistent as of yet" to "small". (Note the venues, they're often looking for programmers as well.) Be friendly, personable, and make some contacts. Enjoy the food, it's good. :)
We've got a team of ~40 super passionate engineers creating the worlds best developer experience; CTO.ai.
We're on market with Vancouver comp and are very comfortable with hiring people with 3-4 years experience. We hire based on potential rather then simply raw experience.
Check us out. If we're not a fit for you, I would personally be happy to introduce you to a number of other companies that I know.
My advice; I've worked / lived across Canada and if you can stick it out in BC and get rolling - the W/L balance and mild winters definitely win out over the rest of Canada.
Work is considered performed where you were physically when the work was done. This work requires a work visa (or citizenship), whether for Canada or for said tropical paradise, otherwise you're subject to deportation. Lying about the purpose of your trip to gain unlawful entry is a whole other matter. Compensation you were provided for the work you did is then taxed by the relevant authorities where you were physically when performing the work. This is why US companies are very careful to tell employees never to work when on vacation because if you did they'd have a lot of paperwork to fill in.
If you're suggesting you can be a total non-resident of both countries by alternating between the two or splitting your time, luckily the tax authorities have thought of this too, I suggest you look up the definition of a Deemed Resident. Effectively, you are deemed a resident of the country to which you have the strongest connection. Or, you can be dual-status resident where you're a part year resident of one country and a part-year resident of another. Worst case they'll both deem you a resident and full on double-tax you if there's no treaty - but make no mistake you will pay taxes. Check out "What are residential ties?" [1] in the CRA handbook.
Now, I'd love to be wrong of course.
What I do know is that even if you're on vacation in the US, let's say on a B-2, it's a grey area to even contribute to open source projects. The US doesn't require that what you're doing be paid to be considered 'work'.
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publi...
scoffs
Can you provide some kind of source? I've worked for small companies and huge companies and I've never heard that.
You do have to be careful, in the US it's not permitted to do anything other than business meetings on a B1. The UK is similar. If you do any engineering work at all you're in violation of your entry status. This is just the rules. If you do productive work and are renumerated for it by a foreign employer taxes may well be due. It doesn't often come up as you're not supposed to be doing it per visa rules.
> Examples of activities for which a person would not normally be remunerated or which would not compete directly with Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Canadian labour market and which would normally be part-time or incidental to the reason that the person is in Canada include, but are not limited to:
> long distance (by telephone or Internet) work done by a temporary resident whose employer is outside Canada and who is remunerated from outside Canada
From your excerpt it would be okay to work remotely so long it doesn't compete in the labor market AND it's incidental to the reason you're in Canada - invalidating my point about US employers telling people not to work in Canada while on vacation (though other countries it definitely varies). However, I'd posit that spending 6 months in Canada working remotely is anything but incidental to the reason that person is in Canada.
https://www.borealisai.com/en/research/
That being said a lot of tech folks in Toronto are leaving (or want to leave) because even though it's a growing and exciting space right now they still pay below market and that gets double worse by the exchange rate.
"anyone recommend companies and locations with a more optimistic/SF-ish culture"
I'm going to interpret this to mean you'd like to join a company where you can be more of a jack of all trades, take multiple hats, pick up stuff and learn on the fly. This is dead as far as I know. For tiny startups that are very very early you can fake it till you make it but beyond that you're gonna be expected to really know what you are doing. You still need to do all that stuff but you also need to be a pro in the primary domains of your role.
Found the position on the company website which I visited after looking at a whoishiring thread.
In Montreal the pay is not that much lower but cost of living is easily halved compared to Vancouver, so your Canadian salary will look a lot more appealing.
If the weather is an issue, find a company in SF that'll let you work remotely. Be smart on the salary -- if they have to pay you as a contractor you'll have more expenses than as an employee.
A senior software engineer would be making anywhere from 100-150k, I don't see that as that bad for having a good quality of life in Vancouver.
You can't buy a house in a good place, but even in SF with big salaries you can't as well. And you get to live in Canada :)
If you're optimizing for money then yeah, work for an American company from Canada. Exchange rate will make your life even better and you get a better social environment.
I wouldn't change my job in Vancouver for a job paying more in SF (or anywhere in the USA). I moved from London to here and the disposable income / quality of life is a lot better in Vancouver IMO.