Europe vs Canada vs Singapore - what are your thoughts on these locations for software engineers?
I understand this question is slightly out of hard core tech.
I am looking for a location to settle long term and originate from India. While I like it in India, wanted to check if there are indeed places with good:
- Software Engineering Opportunities
- Cost of Living
- Earning to Spending Ratio (I am usually a spender on low side, living minimally)
- Safe to live at
- Healthcare, Education and other things needed in life usually
This is really important to me since my parents are getting old and I would want them to stay with me. Thus, it is pertinent for me to decide where I would want to stay so that it becomes easier for them to adapt themselves slowly. At the same time, I don't want to compromise too much in terms of my career as well. I consider safety really important and financial health as a hygine factor.
I am starting this thread/question for folks in various locations to share how their experience has been. Hopefully this can serve as a guiding point for folks in similar situation.
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Discussion
(2 comments)- 1a year agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
All 3 regions have high quality of life (for Europe, I assume you're referred to EU countries). So the main factor is availability of opportunity and pay. Given that, my personal ranking would be:
- Canada
- Europe (if you can go to London)
- Singapore
The nice thing about Canada is that it's relatively easy for folks in Canada to come over to the US. The US has terrible healthcare for a developed country, but the pay and availability of opportunity are sky-high.
- 1
a year agoTeam Lead (people manager) at MistplayTo speak about Canada after living in Montreal, QC for a couple years (moving from the US) I think Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver are pretty great places to live overall in the areas your are talking about. (It is very cold in Montreal and Toronto for a long winter).
I would use an international city comparison calculator like this to compare the cost of living relative to the different places, because even in Canada housing varies a lot. Also you can check out the tax rates in different cities as well. For instance there is twice as much provincial tax in Quebec vs Ontario (15% to 25.75% vs 5.05% to 13.16%) but with that comes a ton of services such as child care and K-12 education. Full list of Quebec services here.
Note people in Canada on a work permit from other countries may need to apply for a visa to visit the US in some cases let alone move there. I'm not 100% sure how that works but it isn't always trivial.
If you come to Canada we're hiring across engineering here:
We have a lot of developers and employees from different backgrounds and are an international company of 250 people.
