Did Shopify have a choice?
Many Canadians who got computer science degrees left to work for American companies for 2x-3x more money.
Many Canadians who got computer science degrees left to work for American companies for 2x-3x more money.
Anecdotally, I know a senior dev who moved back to Canada from SF to work for Shopify.
They have a San Francisco office, and they employ people in the US.
They can also pay US level wages in Canada.
They most likely didn't.
Often, businesses don't realize how much they are missing until they bite the bullet and hire SV caliber engineers.
Seems every time I'm pitched something about "finding unconventional IT talent" it's about hiring cheaper programmers. There's a whole industry built around paying less for programmers. With questionable results. Hell, Canadian politicians pitched Vancouver as an ideal HQ2 location to Amazon since tech workers are worth ~50K less than in America[0]
[0] https://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...
Amazon Toronto doesn't pay much better than Shopify- I can say first hand.
"After-housing" doesn't really mean anything: buying a house means you build equity into the house which you can later sell (and pocket the appreciation).