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Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

Odd they didn't mention Amazon Toronto or IBM. Amazon has 300+ SDEs here (myself included), room for 800 developers in the new office that just opened. Not sure how big IBM is, but I've heard it's fairly big operation here.

It's not that Amazon is a startup itself (what, 100k+ employees worldwide doesn't count?) but that when you have a big company like that you often see people leave to make startups. Young guys spend a couple years being mentored and becoming great developers, then leave to go pursue their passions.

I have two former managers that are both very senior people in local Toronto startups, plus a number of friends who've left to hit up the start-up scene both as founders and early hires.

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How is the pay at Amazon Toronto and what are the projects like?

I work in tech (not Amazon) and live in Seattle, and given the reputation I don't think I'd really want to work for them in this city given the other options we have here.

But if they paid top-notch salary and had great work, I'd seriously consider it as an option when moving back to Toronto. The employment options seem quite limited and I have a hard time justifying a move home if I end up working on less interesting technology and make less than half of what I do here. I'm afraid of my only options moving home being a massive pay cut, boring work, a terrible commute, and being priced out of real estate anywhere appealing in the city. :(

RE: IBM, if I recall most/all of their engineering is in Markham, they don't treat their employees particularly well, and the pay is so-so (though maybe market rates given Toronto).

It's not in Markham. It's on the other side of Steeles, over 50 feet away from Markham ;-)

yea.. Toronto is just not competitive at all compared to other "scenes"

Re: pay- It's less than in Seattle, it's "competitive" for Toronto (ie: few companies pay this much, but then few companies need to here). Never heard of anyone leaving for better money unless they were headed for Seattle or the Bay.

Re: projects- there's lots going on in Toronto. Depends what you're interested in.

Toronto: housing is overpriced. Just a fact of the city. No one under 30 is ever going to own a house in the city, but there's lots of decent condos going up. Find a place on the subway or Go lines and your commute is pretty painless. And the Amazon office is 200m from Union station, don't need to go outside. That was nice in the winter.

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