Nice, thanks for the info. I am also considering good school and educated community areas in Canada, I saw MoneySense report and it seems Ottawa is a good place (ah weather I know), it seems Kelowna (Saw it mentioned before also) suits the bill here.
My wife is citizen, and I still have a year and a half left on my H1, so can continue to work from Canada I think till I get my PR and then the switch can happen. The meetings are more or less Webex/Google Hangout like stuff, I don't expect to fly for frequent business meetings but more for being in sync with HQ.
I agree Bay area real-estate is better and so are the incomes high, but I think I will save on child-care and stuff as both me & my wife's parents can baby-sit and even though how much I like to live in Bay Area, the current immigration system is making me cringe as neither her nor my parents can stay here for more than 6 months, whereas the super-visa in Canada can help us start our family more easily.
That's very good info, thanks a lot!!!. I am also thinking in terms of my wife's career because she has an economics degree and which city would be better for children to grow up in because we will be starting a family as well. I really appreciate the advice you gave. So do you go watch whitecaps games?
My wife spent 10 years in Surrey before moving in with me. We are thinking of moving to Canada, currently living in Bay Area, myself a developer for last 5+ years, earning decently but just tired of the Silicon-Valley rat race (commute, real-estate ownership and long term family settlement) and the weird systems here (immigration [being affected] + general political sentiment[long term, not currently affected]), and not able to decide whether to go to Vancouver or TO or any other option? Most likely, I will be working remotely for the same company and making trips every month or two when I move. Do you mind if you share any advice you might have? Thanks!
Right but Silicon Valley is still the best place to live and own instead of moving somewhere else, I know there's reverse immigration (Book: The rent is too damn high or something), but are there good schools, good neighborhoods? I am kind of spooked by just looking at this Election Campaign which has revealed the dirty underbelly of this country to me. I would still consider long term stability where I know the society is accepting, and I think down the line the economics can be improved if you think about it, because there are good cities, well educated people, but lack of enterprises and small business/startups to employ these people. I saw 500 startups just open a 30Bn fund for Canada and see small but solid indicators that things are changing.
Finally! http://qz.com/656320/dear-prime-minister-trudeau-a-modest-pr...
It's important to me as well but what's more important is the lifestyle and the amenities as well. For e.g living in Silicon valley with higher rents, child care, bad commute and on a work visa, one cannot really think of long term settlement. I have seen Amazon, Facebook, Google have offices in Canada along with these companies I mentioned and that's where I feel little confident that those guys should pay out reasonable wages. I would rather look at this at meta level instead of counting acquaintances here for this gentleman's question.
I am guessing making money is important for you, may I know what kind of company did you work for? There are lot of companies in Canada now that have made some mark in last few years like HootSuite, Shopify & Slack(?). Also I know lot of Canadian tech workers (educated in Canada?) have founded startups in USA, which makes me think it's more of a ecosystem problem.
It's rather unfortunate that the same companies you talk about are keeping their money in tax havens, they hire foreign born workers and most of the manufacturing they do happens in China or Asia. In the end a non college educated American loses to this high skilled labor and cannot afford to live in Silicon Valley which has a broken real estate system, people commute from far distances and BART is in end-of-life stage.
I feel the same, but I am trying to dedicate my hard-earned skills and experience to healthcare so that I can focus my week days on doing something which will someday help saving lives. Otherwise, I think most Tech is a gamble with VC's money (they do have a lot) and at the end we will end up corrupting human generations with information/consumption overload and decent skills to talk to people and enjoy life as it comes. At some point when I was working for a advertising startup, I burnt myself out and it was a good first step at realizing how not to work and inculcated lot of good habits (like frequent breaks, making sure I don't work beyond a certain time everyday, planning for the day {velocity > speed} etc) which re-energized me. And at the end I know, health will win over wealth so it's important I exercise and enjoy each day and worry less about work when I am not working.