Why did you move to vancouver, a place with an even worse affordability problem than the bay area, and no high paying jobs outside of a few specialized doctors and real estate agents.

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?

>Cheaper rent

Rent is not cheaper in Seattle. Salary will make up for it if you are a programmer, though.

Especially since programmers in Seattle earn more than 2x programmers in Vancouver.

It used to be, been a few years since I've been there. Houses are still cheaper to buy casually looking at redfin although. :|

I'm kinda surprised you had to come here to ask: Toronto is the only other option.

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.

Ottawa is also an option, and not just Shopify.

What else did you have in mind in Ottawa?

There is TripAdvisor and SurveyMonkey

"don't pay very well." is a key point in Canada.

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).

>"don't pay very well." is a key point in Canada.

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.

I lived in Ottawa for a long time and worked in Montreal before finally moving to SV.

The pay in Ottawa/Montreal is a disgrace compare to USA/SV.

I'm not disputing that, just providing a data point that you can still live in Canada and work as a dev for good pay and a low cost of living. I could move to the US and make twice my current salary, but that comes with its own drawbacks.

Shopify across Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Waterloo.

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.

Pay here in Vancouver is definitely below the bay area or Seattle. As for doing exciting things, I guess that depends what you find exciting. Several big tech companies have decent sized offices here, Microsoft and Amazon being the most visible examples. There's a lot of games companies, EA being by far the biggest but there are numerous smaller studios. There's quite a few tiny AR / VR startups but they're mostly operating on shoestring budgets. There's quite a few people like me working remote with US companies which can be a good option if you can get it.

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.

Are there any sites or resources in particular you used to find remote US tech jobs? I'm looking for something new but as this thread points to, the pay here in BC is pretty bad relative to the cost of living--remote would be great.

Well in my case I co-founded the company I work for so I didn't use a traditional remote jobs site. I did originally connect with my co-founder online though, through the Oculus forums (we do VR development). I know of other people who work remote in Vancouver but I don't know how they found the jobs in most cases I'm afraid.

weworkremotely.com is a good resource.

This basically mirrors my experience with Canada. So don't play a rigged game, work remotely for foreign (US, Swiss) companies that pay more. Bonus points, become non-resident in Canada, stay for the lovely summers in Vancouver and then bugger off to some tropical beach paradise for the other 6 months a year. You can legally pay nothing in income taxes when you do that (you won't get health care either, but at programmer salaries, self-insure with the difference, or take out private insurance.)

yeah, not really re: the tax thing. I'd suggest taking that up with an accountant, or better yet an attorney specializing in international taxation - I am none of these. This is based on my experiences moving from the US to Canada, and further research I've done while traveling.

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...

This is pretty confusing. Regarding work permits in Canada, remote work is explicitly not considered "work": https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co...

> 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

Based on my reading of R186, a work permit is required, so that's separate (and not something you mentioned anyways).

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.

First off nobody would be dumb enough to try to get a work permit for a remote job, even if it were required by some law. Secondly citizens of canada wouldn't need a permit.

If they didn’t get a work permit they’d be violating immigration law, first of all, and second, that has nothing to do with taxation. And what after your third 6-month long vacation you don’t think they’ll ask how you plan to support yourself? Where your money comes from? Who you work for? I get that every time I wander through and I'm a full-on citizen.

>This is why US companies are very careful to tell employees never to work when on vacation

scoffs

To be clear, I mean international vacation, and also, I imagine that once they tell you the burden falls more on your shoulders than theirs, regardless of what they really want :P

So you're saying that if I have a business meeting in Canada but love and work in the United States, that I owe taxes in Canada? I've never heard of this. In any case, I can't imagine Canada going after you for a few days of taxes and I can't imagine the US saying, oh you were in Canada... No problem, you don't owe taxes for those days.

Can you provide some kind of source? I've worked for small companies and huge companies and I've never heard that.

Not business meetings, no. However thats not what OP was talking about. OP was talking about spending 6 months in Canada and 6 months abroad and paying taxes to nobody while continuing to work for a foreign employer the whole time. That's completely different.

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.

I attend international conferences for work. I also travel internationally to discuss business deals, exchange technical information, and on the rare occasion actually do engineering. There's never been a (weird) tax implication.

I've looked into it quite a bit, you have to meet all the requirements of being non resident and confirm with the CRA that they do not deem you to be resident. But then it should be fine. I haven't personally tried it, but I've heard of wealthy Canadians legally escaping taxes that way - so I'm pretty sure it does work.

You can do that with capital gains sure because you’re taxed based on residency at disposition but work is done where you are physically and taxes are due.

Vancouver has Microsoft, Amazon and EA as the biggest companies. If you're into film (say visual effects) there are lot's of companies as well. Most of companies in Vancouver value work/life balance (we have beautiful mountains) over crazy hours. Lot's of people move from east side (say Toronto) to Vancouver because of that.

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.

Make your own startup or join an interesting small company. How do you do this? It is very easy.

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. :)

Search for "Who's Hiring" posts like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17902901

Then search for Canada within the page.

That pits me directly against the best of the best. For people hiring for those jobs which are HN readers, which happen to be very intelligent as well

Drop me an email? [kc at hc dot ai]

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.

Waterloo region has a lot of great tech companies. But I didn't find any that came close to paying Boston dollars.

Square has an office in Waterloo.

Toronto has more startups (in the sense of VC funded young companies) but the culture is not like SF. There are a lot more jack of all trades and learning/growing opportunities in smaller orgs even if the culture is conservative, though.

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.

We are hiring roles pretty much across the board at Top Hat (in Toronto), and value skills and aptitude over years of experience. Feel free to email me if you want to chat more (address in profile).

They're in the US.

Borealis is an AI research lab backed by RBC. The Vancouver lab is run by Greg Mori. They are hiring. Hit them up.

https://www.borealisai.com/en/research/

I hear that Montreal and Toronto have the majority of the tech scene in Canada.

Besides game companies and research offices for big tech companies, what else is in Montreal?

Montreal is the AI hub of Canada.

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.

pornhub

Really?

Yup! The adult industry is relatively big in Montreal. A few people I know work office jobs at Porn Hub. They operate under the name "Mind Geek" so you don't have to put Porn Hub on your resume. You can Google it, if you're curious. I hear it's a decent place to work.

That's some fresh info. What technologies do they hire for?

Aerospace, engineering, construction.

Hosting companies also.

Remote work for a U.S. company :) That's what I do.

Found the position on the company website which I visited after looking at a whoishiring thread.

Are you still looking for and interested to move anywhere within Canada?

@zaptheimpaler

Launch your own startup. Good luck getting funded.

Hijacking the discussion. What are some of accelerators/programs that you recommend ?. Is it a welcoming community to immigrant entrepreneurs ?

Bootstrap and leverage canadian government programs? There isn't much of any sort of venture capital in vancouver