Staying at the same job, my salary will go from $180k usd to $128k usd ($170k cad). (Equity comp remains the same)
That's a pretty big cut, though at least for me it's worth it because of non-monetary reasons, like being closer to family, not dealing with immigration anymore, healthcare/education.
The money stuff isn't so bad. A downtown Toronto condo is a lot cheaper than San Francisco. That alone makes the pay cut easy enough to swallow. Either way I can comfortably live on a tech salary.
Starting prices for:
3 Bed SF condo: 1.2M usd
3 Bed TO condo: 0.7M usd (900k cad)
No rigorous comparison, just from me house hunting in both markets.
I moved to Toronto, then to SF. Thought I'd also share my anecdata here.
I used to make ~100k/yr CAD (75k/yr USD) when I was in TO around 6 years ago. I bought a house around 7 years ago for 550k. I did a remote stint for a Boulder company for a couple years (~120k/yr USD working from TO), then moved to SF (~200k/yr USD + ~100k/yr equity).
I'm a bit out of the loop w/ TO salaries nowadays, but your 170k CAD definitely seems to be on the very high end of the spectrum.
A few thoughts:
The biggest difference in pay comes from equity. ~100k/yr is pretty normal in SF big tech companies, whereas equity comp in TO is pretty much unheard of unless you're a partner in a company. Caveat: not all SF companies offer liquid equity, or even equity that is worth anything.
Taxes are higher for me working in SF (largely because salaries of comparable positions are higher in SF)
Living costs depend a lot on whether you have a spouse and/or kids. A bunkbed in SF goes for 1.6k/mo if you're single trying to save up. In TO, you can rent a cheap room for $600/mo. But for families: 2 bed condo is ~48k/yr USD, vs ~24k/yr in similar distance in TO. Another very important point: in SF, a foreigner spouse's ability to work can be extremely tricky (e.g. spouse in non-tech field would often not be able be get a work visa sponsorship at all). Canadians can get a TN visa relatively easily, but the H1B visa required for other foreigners isn't guaranteed. Green card timelines range from 2.5 years to virtually impossible to get. By comparison, getting a work visa in Canada is pretty straightforward, and the path to permanent residence is also relatively easy, regardless of country of origin.
Preschool costs ~28k/yr USD per kid in SF, vs ~18k/yr CAD (13k/yr USD)
Healthcare in SF costs me ~3.6k USD/yr base (plus copays/other fees depending on how frequently I actually use it) vs free in TO. Dental and vision costs are similar between SF and TO.
Goods generally cost less in SF. Milk costs ~$5/gallon USD in SF vs $10/4L CAD ($7 USD) in TO.
IMHO: SF is better for saving up while young, Toronto gets pretty attractive once you have a piggy bank to afford housing/build a family.
Consider that your cost of living may be dramatically higher in the US and what you can do with what you have left over may not leave you any better off.
Certainly, you're not talking about working in the Bay Area because a $115K total compensation is borderline impossible to live on anywhere between SF and SJ.
Your thinking could be right, however I would say it depends heavily on where you're living now and where you plan on moving to. 70K CAD in Ottawa or Montreal is going to get you infinitely further than 115K USD in SF or SJ. You'd probably need closer to 200K in SF to match that lifestyle.
Instead of comparing your $70K CAD salary at home by converting to $52K USD at market exchange rates, you should adjust it via purchasing power parity (as you are looking to figure out how far your new pay would take you in your new home relative to what you have now -- not make a purchase in the other country with foreign money). $70K CAD, adjusted for PPP is $75K USD. If you did the same notional conversion for $115K USD in San Francisco (where real estate is 7X the national average price per square foot) you'd probably wind up at $50K.
Now if you're planning to save money and send it home, that's different.
We have offices in both SF and Toronto, and so far people report that even with an increased salary, the standard of living is higher working in the Toronto office.
Generally, the ones who transfer to SF are young and are looking to sacrifice standard of living in exchange for "being part of the scene," which is perfectly rational.
The standard of living in Toronto is reportedly quite higher for people with kids, but that certainly doesn't apply to everyone.
Come work with us and you can conduct your own experiment: Work a year here, a year there, for as long as you need to gather data.
The pay may be a lot less here but real estate is way cheaper. For the price of a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco you could buy a 4 bedroom house in Waterloo. We have a nice startup scene here that's really expected to take off when the LRT opens up in 2018.
Born/raised in Toronto, been in SF for ~4 years. It's not even close. Yes, my rent in SF is high, but my total comp is six figures higher than what I could earn in Toronto. Wages are considerably higher, even when you factor in cost of living, services, and everything else.
If you get roommates your rent in SF will be ~$2800 CAD, meanwhile you're earning $220,000 CAD a year and your other expenses are pretty much the same as Vancouver.
No way Vancouver is more affordable than SF (if you have to work in tech for a living).
I'm a young guy who makes approximately that much, and I feel like I'm not getting very far either.
I moved from my hometown of Winnipeg, Canada to Silicon Valley to build my career. In moving, I tripled my salary. I am definitely better off financially for having moved, but my daily quality of life is lower. Here's some food for thought:
* HOUSING QUALITY AND COST. This is, bar none, the most important aspect of my currently feeling like I'm barely getting by. In Winnipeg, if you're roommating an apartment ~30 minutes bus from downtown, your rent will be around $300/mo. 1br to yourself will set you back $500-$1000 depending where you live. The fanciest 1br penthouse I could find was $1700. Personally, I lived in a rather 'expensive', nice 1br apartment that was in a trendy, gentrifying neighbourhood about 1.5 miles from my work downtown. It cost me $850/mo and that was a luxury. I could've gotten much cheaper if I wasn't so picky about location. Compare with SF: Housing here costs a fortune. And strict rent control + high paying jobs means that the housing they do build is marketed to high income people (read: twitter millionaires). So not only is nothing available in a reasonable price range, but there are many social factors that try to make $3500/mo studios sound normal. In SF, paying a similar percentage of my take-home income as I did in Winnipeg, I get a shitty, tiny, 'jr 1 bedroom' (~400sqft) apartment nestled between a noisy road and a freeway. I can walk to work, but it's 3 miles one way, and takes me through some areas I don't feel comfortable walking alone in.
Housing cost anchors everything else. In Winnipeg I'd be paying $300/mo for what I have and where I have it; in SF I pay $1600. My salary tripled; it didn't quintuple. And because housing costs are the anchor, it makes everything else more expensive by comparison
* KEEPING UP WITH THE HIGH-POWERED JONESES. Tech has a lot of young, rich people in it. And young rich people don't always make the wisest decisions. Consequently, there's a lot of conspicuous consumption going on. I feel like I can't afford to keep up, because I'm financially disciplined and highly value long term stability. I look at other people and assume they do the same. Perhaps they don't. Maybe they're spending 50% of their disposable income on cheap glasses, expensive jeans, and cocktails with PBR in them. I spend almost 50% of my disposable (post-living-expenses) income on savings. Appearances can be misleading, and if you don't consciously keep aware of this, it can be demoralizing
* A NEW NORMAL. I would say that, proportional to cost of living, my real income has not substantially risen by moving. However, it has inflated. And inflation is a good thing when compared against uninflated prices. For example, flights. A flight from YWG to SFO costs ~$700, regardless if I live in Winnipeg ($40k income, $400/mo) or SF ($120k income, $1600/mo rent). As a result, my day-to-day standard of life hasn't increased, but my ability to do things outside of my day to day has. When I lived in Winnipeg, I was unable to take more than one flight per year, anywhere (and I usually spent it on professional develoment-related things). Now, I think nothing of dropping a few hundred dollars to fly to a conference on a weekend. The same goes for nationally-marketed goods such as electronics. My rent might've gone waaay up, but an iphone costs $800USD regardless of where I live. It's easy to overlook this, because it is not a typical everyday thing.
* LONG TERM SAVINGS. This is a little bit more important for me, since I'm paying into SS but as a non-citizen, will never collect a dime. But savings. Savings don't really have an emotional feel to them. They're not tangible, they're just some numbers on pages. If you're pumping a lot of money into savings (like I am), it can feel like that is just money that's disappearing. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Many people live in the US month-to-month, and are one crisis away from bankruptcy. My parents both grew up in households like that. Hell, my parents' households are CURRENTLY like that. I, on the other hand, am squirreling away much of my money. I'm maxing my 401k, so that in my 60s I'll be ok. I'm building up some personal savings, to achieve some personal goals (largely investment related, with the purpose of rescuing me from wage slavery). These are very important things, but they FEEL like money that just disappears
First off, you're probably earning more than 115k in the Bay Area.
I moved from Canada and went from $90k CAD to $180k USD. Even with the high cost of rent, I can save more here than what my take home pay was in Canada. I'll admit though that I don't have kids and I don't have health conditions. That would change the equation a lot.
Additionally, the ceiling is higher here. I felt like I was approaching the ceiling in Canada unless I wanted to move to Toronto.
Sure that's fair, that may be hyperbolic (outside SF and SJ), but I stand by the idea that 70K CAD in Canada will go just as far if not further than 115K USD in the Bay Area.
Let's break it down:
- 70K in Ontario per year is $4400CAD per month after tax.
- A two bedroom apartment in the Glebe in Ottawa (~Mission type vibe) is about $1800-2000 per month on Zumper, leaving you with $2200-2400 after tax.
On the other hand:
- 115K in California is $6400USD per month after tax.
- A two bedroom apartment in the Mission is $3800-4500 per month on Hotpads in the heart of COVID after a 10% y/y drop, leaving you with as little as $1900-2600 per month after tax.
Even before you factor in that everything is more expensive in San Francisco, you'll see quite quickly that you're better off taking a 70K/yr CAD Ottawa salary than a 115K/yr San Francisco salary. You'll have a better lifestyle and you'll probably be happier too.
The math changes when you make a lot of money, I suppose, or if you're going to send it back, but otherwise, it's by no means sufficient to use the exchange rate as a proxy for your lifestyle (50K vs. 115K).
[edit] Not to mention the definition of a low-income household in the Bay Area is $117,000 so, while close, $115,000 is actually considered low income. [1] On the other hand, the definition of a low income household in Ottawa is $56,000 CAD, so you'd actually be 25% over the threshold.
i left a high paying tech job in san francisco, mostly because san francisco is a terrible place to live and i hated the constant tech culture. i took a 60% pay cut (even more when factoring in equity) and moved to a smaller city in canada. quality of life is significantly improved, and with the raises i’ve gotten over the years i’m living a very very comfortable life
Those people would be considered bad with money. You can definitely have way better quality of life in San Francisco and 110k total comp is kind of on the low side (at that point you would probably be making 60k in Toronto though).
These words would be fine if we were talking about a 20% pay difference. But we are talking about a 100-200% pay difference. And if you save half your pay in Vancouver, moving to SF increases your savings rate by 4-6x. This gets significantly better with lower savings rates. That is absolutely crazy. It would be so deeply irrational to have these options and choose Vancouver early in your career. Even just a single four year contract in the bay will completely change your financial situation. Do one or two contracts _then_ move to Vancouver.
I had the exact opposite experience moving from Canada to San Francisco. While wages are much higher, the cost of living is not even comparable - anecdotally much, much higher in SF than either Toronto or Vancouver (both of which I have lived in). Healthcare has been a horrible experience here too, with Kaiser putting my through endless levels of bureaucracy in an effort to avoid paying for my medication.
So your relocation package was > $30k? That's my point is that I think anything they want to do should be covered with that. It's pretty generous.
Real estate fees for a 1M house is approximately $50k in Canada. Should the company really cover that, plus everything else? That's approaching $100k relocation package for a Dev Manager, if he already lives in a high-cost area of Canada.
At some point, it doesn't make financial sense to switch jobs, there's no shame in that. Personally, I would never recommend anyone to come to SF Bay Area if they have a family with children, and if they spouse isn't a high income earner as well. Especially if they already have a house, it's going to be a big step down. I have friends who make > $400k combined that can't afford a reasonably priced home in the Bay Area.
Staying at the same job, my salary will go from $180k usd to $128k usd ($170k cad). (Equity comp remains the same)
That's a pretty big cut, though at least for me it's worth it because of non-monetary reasons, like being closer to family, not dealing with immigration anymore, healthcare/education.
The money stuff isn't so bad. A downtown Toronto condo is a lot cheaper than San Francisco. That alone makes the pay cut easy enough to swallow. Either way I can comfortably live on a tech salary.
Starting prices for:
3 Bed SF condo: 1.2M usd
3 Bed TO condo: 0.7M usd (900k cad)
No rigorous comparison, just from me house hunting in both markets.
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