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Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Some reasons to stay in Canada:

* Your spouse will not be able to work on your visa (TN / H1B)

* "Full insurance coverage" does not mean for your spouse. Be prepared to pay for a delivery if you want to have children

* Your child will have much higher post-secondary student loans

* Crime, Firearms et al.

IMO coming to SV is a young/single person's game (hence braindrain from grads). But a bad idea for established people or people who want a family / social safety.

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I disagree. The income disparity increases at senior levels. I hit a ceiling in Toronto where I hard trouble growing my career and making more than $180,000 CAD TC. Moving to silicon valley my experience was able to fetch over $500,00 USD TC. Sure it meant that for a year and a half my spouse can't work but that's not a big deal.

What was your role in CAD and then USA?

Staff software engineer in a somewhat niche field so the lack of opportunities was a real issue.

> Sure it meant that for a year and a half my spouse can't work

Where does the year and a half come from? Green card processing delay? That can be 10+ years for approximately 50% of the world population (Indians + Chinese)

True, but we're talking about Canadian here.

> able to fetch over $500,00 USD

By far this not the case. Most will be around 1/3rd that (according to the salary reports i've read) .

As someone who works/hires in the field, the salary reports are all wrong. I have not seen a single one yet that was close to accurate. In software a 90th percentile engineer can easily make 2-3x what a 50th percentile engineer makes. (And it can get even crazier as you move higher up the tail.) This is not true in virtually any other industry, which seems to cause problems for the salary reports.

Ok, thats all good. But is HN giving advice for the 90ths percentile or the 50th?

If you're working at a software company in the US, the odds are good you make enough that you're not living near any significant crime unless by choice (for instance, for "city life"). Crime is seriously pocketed in the US. And (perhaps fortunately) the number of people I've known who've ever seen an illegally owned or used gun is vanishingly small.

You forgot being able to buy a house. If you're content with renting forever it's not an issue, but if you ever want to buy you'd better hope that both you and your partner work in tech.

Not gonna happen in Toronto or Vancouver either.

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