It&#x27;s crazy and upsetting to watch Canada squander the talent its great engineering schools produce, especially given the low cost.<p>I left Toronto 8 years ago for the US but have close ties to home and keep regular tabs on the labour market. Even at 1:1 CAD:USD, before factoring in increased cost of living in Toronto (vs. where I am, which is not SF), I&#x27;m making close to double what I&#x27;d hope to fetch back home. If I really bust my ass and kill it where I am, the disparity is only going to grow.<p>Once you account for other factors like the increased cost of everything and the general rarity of high-paying tech jobs, returning to Toronto feels like too much of a risk: even if I were to strike relative &quot;gold&quot; and make $120k-140k+ CAD as a senior engineer (a far cry from what I get how), what happens when I move on to something else? A close, highly-talented friend of mine has one of those jobs but feels trapped and doesn&#x27;t even know where else he could go.<p>I love that the Toronto startup scene is growing and maturing and I have friends who are really working to, but I fear what&#x27;s going to happen when funding in the US begins to contract. SF, NYC, and Seattle all have profitable &quot;anchor&quot; employers which will continue to bid for talent even when startup funding won&#x27;t sustain high tech salaries. Toronto has small branch offices of American companies and some banks (I&#x27;m skeptical about the latter). Is there much else?<p>As far as I can tell there just isn&#x27;t as much good work. I want to go home some day, but as someone who was fortunate enough to land a good tech job in the US: returning is a massive step down in pay for: fewer choices of work, a more fleeting labour market, a less ambitious environment, an expensive city with overpriced real estate, and a public transit&#x2F;commute crisis which might not get materially better before I retire. I really do love the place though.<p>tl;dr I&#x27;m an exceptionally fortunate Canadian spoiled by great career prospects in a major American tech hub and find it hard to justify returning home :(