Canada's IT Market

April 11, 2008 8:02 AM

What would be the best city for me to move to for a job as a Computer Programmer in Canada? The best city would be defined as potential for advancement and suitable for my skillset.

I've got C++ and web development using an obscure setup as professional experience with 6 years total; J2ME, php, a java / flask socket driven thing, and very rudimentary Ruby on Rails as self directed projects; and some minor dabbling with mainframe stuff back in a university work placement. My personal circumstance right now is that I'm at thinking about aborting a pie-in-the-sky quest for a job in Hong Kong after 3 months. 我不讲广东话! I am able to move anywhere in Canada and have to right to work in Canada. I worked in Winnipeg for my career thus far, got tired of the lack of career advancement and low salary at the place I worked at, and then took of for a huge circumnavigate the globe trip with a goal of ending up somewhere to continue working that isn't Winnipeg. Resume is on my vanity website linked from my profile page.

I can make this decision myself, but there's always doubts about everyplace I think of, and I've been out of work (purposely) for to long now. I don't want to screw up like I did here.

There's Montreal, I can use my C++/ mobile development skills for the small gaming market there, BUT my last name isn't French. Vancouver is supposed to have a small market and a large pool of candidates. Calgary seems like a .NET kind of place. Toronto looks good, but the cost of living... I know someone in Ottawa, I am asking there. I'm leaning towards Vancouver, and will start applying there for jobs. Any ideas? The one caveat I have is that I will really miss HK if I leave (big city, walk everywhere, subway, no driving, awesome hiking, the $30 HKD massive bag of ho fan noodles...) so I'd like to stay as close to this lifestyle as possible.

posted by sleslie to work & money (13 comments total)

Waterloo, ON and Ottawa are the main high tech hot spots in Canada. I'd start your search there.
posted by rocket88 at 8:10 AM on April 11

I just gotta say that "Calgary seems like a .NET kind of place" is a great turn of phrase.
posted by rlef98 at 8:20 AM on April 11 [1 favorite]

The cost of living in TO is similar to vancouver's, and our tech industry ain't too shabby at all. Plus a big bag of ho fun can be yours for a similar price I would think.
posted by sid at 8:25 AM on April 11

Vancouver and Toronto both have rather large Chinese populations/Chinatowns. Montreal is a great city for the "big city, walk everywhere, subway, no driving, awesome hiking" parts, but the Chinese food there really sucks, though there is a Chinatown where you might be able to find decent fare since you speak the language.

As for the tech market, I only have the knowledge that I had a friend who graduated in CS from McGill (#1 school in the country), and he wanted to stay in Montreal, but couldn't find a job there, so ended up in Toronto instead. Not sure if that is indicative of the market or his particular skill set, though. In particular, I don't think he speaks French. But your last name need not be French to get a job as long as you speak it. Good luck!
posted by Grither at 8:26 AM on April 11

Toronto has a strong tech industry. Bigger than Waterloo I would actually say - RIM is big but Toronto has many, many more small dev shops. Where by small I mean in the hundreds of employees. Plus Toronto has the headquarters for all the major Canadian banks which employ a lot of developers. Vancouver is nicer in many ways but I think Toronto is ultimately a bigger market for developers. Plus it is very walkable as you describe. Cost of living seems high but salaries generally match the cost of living.
posted by GuyZero at 8:42 AM on April 11

Unless your French is decent, the choice is between Vancouver and Toronto, IMHO. If you do indeed speak some form of Chinese, there will be plenty of opportunities to leverage this in both places, but Vancouver's connection to Asia is definitely stronger.

Vancouver's tech industry has the potential to be as good as Toronto's. But as a community, it's not quite as sophisticated which makes it seem smaller than it really is. There are still some massive players here though, such as EA, Relic, Nokia, Radical, Rockstar Vancouver, etc. Microsoft is opening up a shop here too. There's lots of smaller companies as well, plenty of which are doing web and mobile development.

big city, walk everywhere, subway, no driving, awesome hiking, the $30 HKD massive bag of ho fan noodles...

Vancouver provides all of these things, arguably better than Toronto. It's less sprawl-ish, you can get around find without a car and you'll never run out of interesting places to hike.

Here's a thread from earlier with the week offers thoughts on Toronto vs. Vancouver.
posted by Nelsormensch at 8:52 AM on April 11

Waterloo has more than RIM...much more.
But this shouldn't get into a pissing contest about who's city is better.
posted by rocket88 at 8:57 AM on April 11

If it's the HK culture you're after, Vancouver is the place to be. Not even just in Chinatown, but the entire city, and even some of the suburbs (Richmond, for example) have very very large Chinese populations. But yeah... the cost of living is high. Rents are getting out of control (especially if you're looking via craigslist), especially downtown. Don't even thinking about buying unless you're got rich relatives helping out, or want to put 70% of a decent developer salary towards housing for the next 35 years.

In terms of the market, I'm only familiar with Vancouver, so I can't comment on anything else. (except that Ottawa, at least a couple of years ago, had a ton of ex-Nortel developers looking for new work..) It's not impossible to get a job here, depending on your skillset. Make sure you also keep tabs on T-Net BC for opportunities.
posted by cgg at 9:28 AM on April 11

I've lived in both Ottawa and Waterloo. Here are my thoughts on your question:

Waterloo: Has much more than just RIM, it's one of the fastest growing tech areas in Canada. I joke with my friends about being the only non-engineer/computer programmer in this city. It's an interesting mix of a city with a large Asian population, students, Mennonites and small-town Ontario mindset. Somehow everyone coexists.

Ottawa: It has a tech industry based in what used to be called Kanata. Many programmers work for the federal government, as all of the Departments are located there. Maybe try that route?
posted by carabiner at 9:30 AM on April 11

Tech is pretty strong in Ottawa.

No need to speak French.

Unless you're trying to get government jobs - but, due to CS shortages in the Federal government, it looks like they'll hire and provide French training.

But, plenty of other big shops in Ottawa. A lot of Junior / Intermediate Programming openings every week.
posted by ChrisManley at 9:34 AM on April 11

You might want to look into some location specific recruiters, I use Si Systems, and while they're not huge, they seem to have a good sampling of what sort of positions are available.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:05 AM on April 11

But this shouldn't get into a pissing contest about who's city is better.

After 6 years of combined undergraduate and graduate education as well as being the home of all my in-laws, I can say as many bad things about Waterloo as I like. TORONTO RULEZ! d00D!

But seriously, Waterloo is a very suburban town. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it does not have a decent transit system and it's simply not walkable for day-to-day life. You will not replicate Hong Kong anywhere in Canada but Toronto and Vancouver will be the closest. Plus Waterloo traffic is getting worse - the city infrastructure has not kept pace with the population & economic growth. IMO at least. So it's no picnic to drive in either.

Also Waterloo is COLD in the winter. Vancouver is tropical by Canadian standards and Toronto gets relatively mild winters but Waterloo lacks Toronto's lake effect and thus gets much harsher winters. Personally I don't mind it but I remember that foreign students took some getting used to it.

Ottawa, like Waterloo, is more spread out. And cold. Ottawa is the only place where I have ever met people who complained about winter not being cold enough. (no canal skating, crappy local skiing during warm winters)

Certainly Waterloo and Ottawa both have great job opportunities. It will depend on whether you really want to take lifestyle over job in the end. Assuming you're under 30, I know (knew) lots of young computer professionals who lived and worked downtown, who hardly drive or did not own cars and generally lived the stereotypical urban lifestyle. I expect Vancouver is the same that way.
posted by GuyZero at 10:44 AM on April 11

Vancouver has all the things you're looking for, BUT, the cost of housing is higher than anywhere else in the country. Houses that cost $700k in Toronto are $1.2M here. I have friends who've left apartments/condos here and bought houses in the Beaches for less than they sold their condos or paid for their apartment rent here.
posted by acoutu at 12:03 PM on April 11