I’ve been looking at some levels for Canadian cities and wondering what currency those total comp numbers are. The site says they are US but if you actually convert the numbers, the values are a bit inflated. In fact, without the conversion it sounds a lot like the numbers that are actually being paid (from limited social circle data points). Along with the fact that base pay is typically CAD whereas stock is almost always USD. Are Levels.fyi numbers for Canadian cities in USD or CAD?
So how do you know what is a good or bad offer then? for example i am in toronto and theres quite a few amazon salaries but they do not reflect what my friends there make (they didnt negotiate well but thats a separate issue)
Another thing you need to keep in mind, many of those people are moved because of H1B denial/uncertainty so they have got good RSU in US which they kept while moving to Canada that's why it seems inflated. If you directly get offer from Canada then don't expect such high numbers as US salaries compared to bay/Seattle area. 200k Cad is pretty much well above avg offer for Canada. This should be good baseline for you to compare for senior engineer. For Junior engineer,no one respects them in Canada. Expect 100k base +plus few stocks..
The salaries here are in CAD: https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Canada/
I’ve definitely noticed the salaries for Canadian cities are supposed to be adjusted for CAD-USD conversion but definitely aren’t. For example, a new grad Amazon Canadian offer should be around 100k USD. Sometimes you see people posting 160k USD which is definitely not possible.
Canadian numbers on there are usually wrong or not worth looking at. They either put down RSU or signing bonus as annual bonus, or didn't negotiate so numbers are really crappy. Plus there's just really small sample size to begin with