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> Attracting strong talent in Canada is hard given the massive pay differences gained by moving south of the border.

The size of the pay difference is something you, as the prospective employer, have significant direct control of. It is within your authority to point the dial anywhere from "hard to find anybody because of the massive pay difference" to "easy to attract strong talent, while still saving money relative to what it would cost to attract the same level of talent in the US".

The Canadian business establishment will not come after you to break your knees if you offer higher wages than they do.

by broken-kebab3 hours ago|

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If you pay more while earning less (or attracting less investment money) you are at risk of being outcompeted. I'm not an expert in Canadian economy, however I guess paying the same salary in Ontario costs more vs profits, than in California, or Texas.

by cmrdporcupine2 hours ago|

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If you are competent at identifying talent and hiring it, paying more in this market is actually a quite "neat hack" to slay any competition that is obsessed with low margins and therefore ends up with, frankly, mediocrity, as a result.

by mitthrowaway21 hours ago|

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If you think talent isn't worth the price, that's also a valid philosophy! But it's not the same thing as it being hard to attract talent.

by hello_moto17 hours ago|

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US hi-tech companies opened branches in Canadian cities. Used to be for H1B hopper but no longer the case: they have been expanding their footprints.

by cmrdporcupine17 hours ago|

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For Google Canada it was never about H1B hopping. They wanted the talent around Waterloo and the U of T.

(Later a large part of our staff was Canadians returning home in 2016 after doing their time in Mountain View)

by cwnyth13 hours ago|

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I was actually pleasantly entertained by this movie, despite the inaccuracies. Loved to see the rise and fall and not just rise and conquer that so many biopics portray today.

by gdilla2 hours ago|

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It is one of the best movies to watch in an airplane

by cmrdporcupine17 hours ago|

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This is bizarrely self-contradictory. Pay differences are high because in fact there's a glut of talent.

I've worked for many companies over the years that chose to colocate here because of the relative ease of finding talent.

And there's plenty of good talent that doesn't leave. Because we don't want to. Home is home.

There's also lots of us who work remote for US or EU companies these days.

(Blackberry movie also is garbage)

by ttul17 hours ago|

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The lack of immigration problems is one reason why the talent is less expensive. The other reason is probably because people in Canada get compensated in other ways. Many of my American friends who left Canada for employment eventually return when their kids reach school age because they can't stomach the harsh reality of the US education system. Or something happens to their health.

It's easy to knock Canada for its personal income tax rate, but compared to European alternatives, it's still quite low, despite offering a whole lot of baseline public goods.

by cmrdporcupine16 hours ago|

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The deal used to be that it cost less to live here, so the lower pay was mostly made up for. Now it doesn't because housing costs hyper-inflated under low interest rates, lax regulation, and high immigration.

That said, while senior SWE salaries here absolutely not even close to competitive with the Bay Area or NYC they are not that far off from other places in the US (like smaller midwest cities etc). While Canadian salary packages are depressed, it's also partially a result of: they're not inflated.

The bigger concern is more the lack of interesting work.

by gdilla2 hours ago|

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And a lot don’t leave if their spouse can’t work in the US (or has no interest in being sah). I know lots with partners who would never give up their Canadian gov pension track. That and other family obligations make it harder to move.

by cmrdporcupine2 hours ago|

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Yep. In the mid-2000s when we first got married and had young kids my wife worked for Apple Canada, and I worked for a company that was just getting acquired by Google. We could easily have just both company-transferred to the Bay Area and made 3x the money and had much nicer weather. My mother-in-law had just passed away (fuck Cancer, etc) and there was little tying us here family wise. But choices were made: Canadian public school system vs US, being a citizen and secure in that here (vs insecure visa status), I wanted a rural property and to live rural (which would not have been a viable option there), etc. etc. For better or for worse we stayed here.

Many do similar calculations. Home is home. It's profoundly arrogant (and very American) to assume that the "best talent" moves for money and opportunity.

Americans have very high labour mobility rates, and often assume that's how the whole world works. But in most places in the world the idea of uprooting your whole life for a job is seen as odd.