What used to be the "creative bohemian area" of the city has been heavily invested in by Ubisoft (first), and then by a slew of other tech startups. The same thing happens in every city: the artists and the small community shops are being forced out to make space for poke bowl restaurants and tiki bars when the spaceship lands.
As a result, the local framing has become "artists vs AI". Grassroot action will paint this influx as a bad thing. To be fair, this whole situation has been mismanaged for decades. By private stakeholders, by the borough's mayors. Montreal as a whole has been historically bad at using alternative scenes to rehabilitate part of itself, then undercutting support to these alternatives scenes & smaller communities... See Griffintown, St-Laurent/Mile-End, St-Henri
> a slew of other tech startups. The same thing happens in every city: the artists and the small community shops are being forced out to make space for poke bowl restaurants and tiki bars when the spaceship lands.
You could say exactly the same about the Old Street / Shoreditch area of London UK in the last 20 years. Hardly changing a word, except for "poke bowl" and "tiki bar" - that's just annual fashion.
I lived for ~10 years in Montreal. From high school to post college, until I moved to SF.
My family is still there, so get to go back about twice a year. I really love Montreal, and every time I'm back I think about the possibility to go back.
Montreal has evolved so much in the past 10-15 years it's incredible. The culture has opened a lot (it was always full of it, but before it was mostly internal culture), better food/coffees etc.
Remove construction and winter, and it'd be really the perfect city.
I really like things like that evolving in Montreal, because despite being a great city, it doesn't have much great opportunities. You get stuck to a pretty low ceiling pretty easily (at least if you stay an employee).
Montreal's salaries are so low it's almost a disgrace. Yes the city is also cheaper, but it still doesn't compare. I made a quick analysis with a friend recently, comparing Montreal with SF. And even if you spend half your money in rent in SF, you'd still get out with more money, etc.
The government offers great deals on salaries to tech companies coming to Montreal, so I'd love to see some more regulations on those salaries and pushing to make them higher.
For a remote worker with a decent salary, going to Montreal is great tho. With the recent immigration issues with Trump, I've heard a lot of US-based workers moving to Vancouver or Toronto. I'd recommend greatly Montreal. You don't need to speak French.
The salary is less of a problem if you're growing old there -- Montreal is a nice balance between the US and major European cities, where there is a pretty big social safety net. You don't need to pay for health insurance, childcare is much less expensive, college if you remain in the province as well, there is paid parental leave, that sort of thing. You do have to deal with winters and traffic which some people especially as they age get very frustrated with.
At this point in my life I would not consider again working in the US though. There's a certain amount of "life" I need in my "work/life balance" and I'm not sure I can get it in a country where it costs two months' salary just to deliver your kid.
I was born and raised in Montreal and there is a bit of cultural shock between Americans and Quebecers.
Here, mostly in the French community, wealth isn't well perceived at all and is kind of a taboo. For some reason if you earn considerable money, say 100k which is twice the average salary in QC, people immediately assume you are doing something illegal or unethical.
You can't drive a big car without getting the mean eye.
Especially if you are one of those "replacing people with machines."
Moreover, the language barrier blocked the French companies to see what's going on outside of QC. This definitely keeps the salaries down and now every HR department in town think it offers competitive conditions.
You also have to know that the Engineering title is protected in Quebec and that you can't call yourself an engineer in any field without a diploma that is approved by the OIQ (http://oiq.qc.ca/Pages/accueil.aspx?lang=en).
It makes no difference in the long run but software engineers can expect around 30k more than non-engineers when getting out of school.
My friends and I make good money while studying Software Engineering full time. We are top of our class, but we make around ~80K CAD working as developers in a big Canadian bank and all have offers ranging from 120K to 180K CAD for when we graduate.
My point is that there are good opportunities in Montreal but you definitely have to shop a lot.
Saying we are recent graduates is a bit of a stretch (mostly PhDs), my wording could have been better.
I totally agree these salaries don’t represent the local startup scene or even the tech scene.
If you are not looking exclusively at Startups, there is plenty of companies, especially in finance, banking, actuary and insurance, that are looking for talent in AI/Data science and can offer excellent salaries in Montreal.
Working in a (very) corporate environment isn’t for everyone but Montreal is such a nice place, imho the trade off is absolutely worth it.
If you work at code mills then salaries are capped at 90ish. If you work for actual businesses that solve real problems then the salaries are much higher. I know many people in both camps.
They're getting 50-55k. OTOH their rent is 500 to 800 a month (including electricity and sometimes internet), and they can buy a house in the suburbs if they want for about 300 to 400k. (All prices CAD.) Montreal has a ton of startups and companies that offer good stock options/RSUs/bonus packages as well, you can shop around for those.
This is not a bad tradeoff -- consider 5x the rent and 4x the house price in SF, which is a less safe city with much worse suburb to city transit options, and only what, 2.5x the salary?
Numbers scale exponentially tho. Let me put everything in USD base and then do a napkin comparison:
Montreal:
- av salary: cad$70k -> $55k
- av rent: cad$860 -> $656
- net: $47 128
SF:
- av salary: $135k
- av rent: $3.5k
- net: $93 000
Taxes are very similar so let's keep them out.
Again obviously this is back of the napkin, and there are other factors, such as healthcare etc. but actually, unless you have a very specific situation (lots of kids, lots of health issues, etc) it still seems better to be in SF, COST WISE.
I'm not saying life is terrible in Montreal, I love Montreal :) But having done both, in the technologies sector, the difference is huge. If you work in another domain this is not true, but engineers are paid so much in the US, it's hard to beat.
Yeah I can see the argument. I think this forum in general is too easily weighted towards considering money vs everything else in life though. I wanted to show numbers for a life that (considering the low CoL of the area) was perfectly good and maybe a little less rat-racy.
Also out of pure patriotism we just have way too many Canadians leaving so they can make more money in the US... but there definitely is innovation here also (maybe even more innovation, just less capital) so people who don't need as much money but are anxious about their skills getting outdated can definitely stay in Montreal.
> I think this forum in general is too easily weighted towards considering money vs everything else in life though.
That's to expect when the average participant lives a single young male life in SV or a major urban city with a large tech presence and hasn't reached an age where buying homes, child care, commuting, retirement, etc. become actual issues.
Yeah this is too bad and a big issues. Good, cheap schools. People come study and then realise opportunities are not that great and go work somewhere else. Most of friends left after their studies.
This is considering that I speak French, have 10+ years of work experience doing software development. I even suggested my interest in an Engineering Manager position due to my experience leading teams in my two previous jobs. They only added $10k to the base salary and stopped there. They didn't seem to be interested to negotiate, they just sat in that offer for one week rejecting all my suggestions to increase my salary, until I decided to decline all together.
All this, after 6 engineering and hiring managers from that company came to my city to recruit Senior Engineers, interviewing around 30 people, selecting around 8 of us for a technical interview, then giving an offer to just 3 of us. I am not sure if the other two candidates accepted the offer. I hope not, this way they can learn a lesson and increase their salaries next time.
I live in Montreal, but work remotely for an American company. I am paid in USD what is twice the average for the same thing here. With all of our code running in datacenters nowadays, I can offer my services anywhere.
Local compagnies need to wake up and start competing in the global market or they will suffer from a new kind of brain drain.
Nice promo piece, anyone have anecdata about experience living in Montreal and working in tech there? I've mostly heard about their electronic gaming scene. Why aren't more people going to there rather than Vancouver or Toronto?
Montreal is an extremely easy city to live in. Very inexpensive rent, good nightlife/events and arts/culture scene, and a pretty good transit system.
The Quebecois will disagree with me on this, but I don't think you even need to speak French if you're working in tech - you might just have a smaller friend circle of Anglos.
Taxes however are crazy high and salaries are low compared to cities like Vancouver or Toronto.
Small plug - we (AON3D) are looking for c++, python, and js developers right now. Find our careers page and send us an email if you're interested in 3d printing and industrial machines.
Taxes are pretty comparable to NYC, but they include health insurance (assuming one has the right immigration status) regardless of employment. Salaries are definitely lower but also in line with cost of living. Agree about language, though one may want to learn French after arriving for maximum enjoyment.
Hello from another techie in Montreal, recently arrived from NYC. :)
> The Quebecois will disagree with me on this, but I don't think you even need to speak French if you're working in tech - you might just have a smaller friend circle of Anglos.
Native anglophone; non-native fluent speaker of French.
You can totally make it work in Montreal with your small circle of anglo friends. But almost anyone I've known over the years who tried to make it work like that is either quite bitter, or has left once raising a family comes into the question.
For good reason, just as in Germany or Poland, unless you learn French, you will be excluded from public culture, especially as you get older, and that largely means a lot of the great things of Montreal get watered down.
Except he missed one major selling point. Our food/restaurant scene is second to none. If you consider moving here then negotiate a couple of months remote work per year and work from Costa Rica in Jan-Feb.
That's a very important point. I moved from Montreal to NYC a couple of years back and one thing I definitively miss is the food scene. Not that NYC is bad by any metric but Montreal just has an amazing food scene.
Is there an actual remote work policy there? I did think working south in the summer would be a neat way to escape the cold, though I'd pick somewhere closer. Raleigh or Nashville, perhaps.
You don't need to speak french to work in Tech in Montreal, but you won't be able to work everywhere. I know many people who don't speak french and work in mtl.
Montreal is probably the only city in the province where you don't need to speak french though.
They're only a bit worse than Toronto winters, and Toronto is attracting lots of tech from the States. It's not the main problem. Though I guess people who tolerate very cold weather climates may not correlate much with people who enjoy French as the main local language?
I don't know for sure either way - I only arrived at the end of February, and last winter was unusually intense and long in both Montreal and the northeast US where I was just before.
Still, if it is just 4 months, that's pretty close to canonical season length!
They offer lots of coping mechanisms too like the underground city in the downtown core and good home heating, plus lots of outdoor and indoor activities to make the winter enjoyable.
This is partly true and bad, partly false, and partly true and good.
Partly true and bad: I think this bit is self-evident to this audience.
Partly false: the language wars have subsided in Montreal and rank and file tech workers can manage okay in English until they get around to learning French, even if the company has to deal with French by virtue of being here. The provincial politics are noise which can mostly be tuned out within the Montreal tech worker bubble.
Partly true and good: the friction that Quebec's language laws have created across the provincial border have allowed space for more "made in Quebec" companies that wouldn't have happened if Quebec let itself be treated as just another North American jurisdiction. It keeps the French/European cultural flair that makes it uniquely Quebec. Admittedly plenty of North American influence is still present.
Completely true and good: There is no price to be placed on something that core to cultural heritage i.e. language, that can be decided upon by someone who doesn't or hasn't historically participated in it.
I usually just go by babuloseo everywhere. I have a reddit account you can message me and github also, I recently started using keybase and it seems to be pretty cool.
https://keybase.io/babuloseo
Anyone know of companies doing technically challenging stuff that pays well in Canada? I recently moved to Vancouver but am finding very few doing interesting stuff besides big tech like Amazon/Google etc.
Have a look at our portfolio (at tandemlaunch.com). It includes two of companies listed in the article - wrnch and fluent.ai - as well as 20+ others all working on pretty interesting technical challenges in computer vision, AI, sensors, robotics, etc..
Regarding pay, Montreal has a pretty low cost of living so wages aren't huge. If you are looking for Valley-style salaries then you are simply out of luck. But if you are looking for "paying well" in the Canadian/Montreal context then some of our older companies might fit the bill. Airy3D, Aerial, SportlogiQ and a few others have all raised Series A or beyond in funding so wages are fairly competitive. If you are looking for equity stakes instead then of course the younger ones might be a fit for you.
I build startups and teams in Vancouver and the valley, so here is my perspective on Montreal for what it's worth:
Great city to live in. French is a wonderful personal gain but not a professional necessity. Taxes aren't a big deal - especially with the tax holidays for foreign technologists - compared to the social benefits that you are getting. The winter is rough but survivable with the right clothing. The startup scene is growing in leaps and bounds. Super exciting to watch all the progress everywhere.
Waterloo has an okay robotics scene. Though they generally pay poorly and most suffer from startup-itis. I've heard what I'll call "rumours" that the founders are generally in bed together to keep local talent competition low.
In fact, after some thought I'm not sure I recommend it.
Interesting! I only knew of one person back then but I guess they started building a team under him. I mean it does make sense, Montreal has plenty of AdTech talent.
Hey there! We have our headquarters in Quebec City with offices in Montreal and remote positions available as well. The company is Coveo - https://www.coveo.com/en
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1130346/305-bellechasse...
What used to be the "creative bohemian area" of the city has been heavily invested in by Ubisoft (first), and then by a slew of other tech startups. The same thing happens in every city: the artists and the small community shops are being forced out to make space for poke bowl restaurants and tiki bars when the spaceship lands.
As a result, the local framing has become "artists vs AI". Grassroot action will paint this influx as a bad thing. To be fair, this whole situation has been mismanaged for decades. By private stakeholders, by the borough's mayors. Montreal as a whole has been historically bad at using alternative scenes to rehabilitate part of itself, then undercutting support to these alternatives scenes & smaller communities... See Griffintown, St-Laurent/Mile-End, St-Henri