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Comment by cplanas | Hacker News Reader

What is there for these companies in Canada? It seems a better idea to open development offices in other countries, that might be cheaper and have a bigger talent pool.

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I've known quite a few skilled developers that have been unemployed up here in Canada for one small reason or another, there does seem like plenty of opportunity for Moneyball-style recruiting. I gather most companies won't open in other countries because of the tax advantage [1]. Hopefully the increased liquidity of the job market doesn't increase short term interests in the already expensive housing market.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-burgerking-idUSKBN...

Such as? (Genuinely curious)

Canada also has the same language, can have the same time zone as any US location, is closer (no overseas flights) and has established trade relationships with the US.

EU is a clear example. And then you have China and India, that have a smaller percentage of educated people, but have such a big populations that their elites can be excellent.

The issue with Canada is that it's pretty small, population wise. I guess that for those big American companies is simpler to bring the -relatively- small number of Canadians to the US.

Some of us won’t go to work in the U.S. for any company for any reason, whereas we might consider working for an American company in Canada. I’m one (and as a dual-citizen, I could work in the U.S.), and Tim Bray (as an example) is another. He left Google because they insisted that he work in Mountain View, where Amazon has an office in Vancouver, where he lives.

Canada has some decent ranking schools (UofT,Waterloo,UBC,SFU,etc.) and many Canadians don't want to move to the US (plus the Canadian dollar is worth less lately).

Yes, but even if Canada has a really big pool of talented developers for its size, the base problem is Canada's population size. According this ranking (http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/universit...) Canada has 4 universities ranking in the TOP 100 for CS. The EU has 30. China has 5, and it's much cheaper.

Those rankings are a joke. Seriously, UBC ahead of Waterloo?

If I look here[1] the 'much cheaper' seems not to be that much. And ofcourse on the comparison part here [2]. I am currently around close to Shanghai but I live in Europe and the prices are quite comparable to north EU/US if I would want the same living standard. In the south (GR/ES/PT) and east of the EU it is cheaper than here and I find it's also cheaper there than in Beijing if I compare living standard again.

[1] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp [2] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp

Well, the cost of living does not matter to the company; the issue for them are the salaries. According this[1], the average salary for a software developer in Shanghai is 150k RMB. That's like 30.5k Canadian dollars. The average salary for a software developer in Vancouver is more than double of that[2].

Changing the topic... I'm not so sure if Southern Europe is cheaper than Shanghai. The two main cities of Spain rank higher in cost of living than Shanghai, according your link. I guess that defining the "cost of living" is a really complicated problem.

[1]: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/shanghai-software-enginee... [2]: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/vancouver-software-develo...

Yeah I think it is also who you ask. And Glassdoor is also a bit wonky; all companies I speak to here are crying they have to offer 350k-800k RMB otherwise devs (seniors) just go elsewhere. And that's Vancouver salaries.

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