Has anyone tried or heard of friends/colleagues going through Canada's start up visa program? I have 10 yoe in ML, have several interesting vision related start up ideas and want to pursue one of them. I have decent experience, network and financial support but still on H1b for next 17 years, so will have to move out. I have potential co-founders who're on green card and will be citizen soon, so basing the company in US is not a problem. I'm exploring applying to Canada startup visa program and relocating to Vancouver. Curious to know if anyone has tried this before.
@op, are you still at Google, is it possible for you to find a job at Google office in Canada? That way you will get points for a job offer, or you can ask Google to process the PR application for you.
Yes I've already looked into that and even had a job offer with a team in Waterloo. But I prefer trying out the startup directly instead of the 2 year wait through that route. Google makes you wait 1 year before PR application and then PR processing takes another year. Startup visa allows immediate work permit for your startup after approval process of about 4 months. PR processing happens in parallel.
Ohh I understand, not wanting to wait. In any case good luck op! I am moving to Canada to work on my startup too.
Serious advice -not worth moving here if your working for google and the likes
Why is that snoopi? If you don't mind elaborating
Most of these companies are just satellite offices with 1-2 teams apart from amazon. You will be stuck forever on one company. If your working for Google you have pretty much reached the end of your career. No company will pay you higher, you can’t move into management into any other company. So most people wait till they get a US visa
Op, Check BC PNP, you will get enough points for PR. I am in Vancouver. Hit me up if you are looking for Tech Roles in startup, curious to know what are you are planning.
This. Definitely try PNP.
@amazon - how big is Amazon there in terms of number of engineers and teams? I'm planning to do my own startup in computer vision space, currently exploring several ideas. Planning to build a prototype, try to get some customers, talk to Bay area investors to validate the idea while I'm here before moving to Canada.
Not worth working for fang in Canada. TC is low.
Just curious - why do you think Canada is the best place for a startup? (Other than immigration) I can understand that Toronto has a great deep learning community but most top guys have mostly moved to US or China now.
It is not realistic for someone born in India to even think of doing a startup in the US. There isn’t even a well defined visa for entrepreneurs. While your starting a company you have various stress factors like funding, retaining talent etc . Add immigration on top of that and it’s just not realistic. Similarly China isn’t easy to break into being a foreigner( language barrier, vastly different work culture etc) Given the same time zones, language ,entrepreneur friendly system, educated workforce -Canada is the logical choice for OP
I understand the immigration barrier very well, my question is why Canada specifically? At some point you’re going to build a global engineering team, might as well do it now. EU/India offers a better bang for the buck in terms of talent. Canada may be physically close to US but to bay area VCs it is still an international investment
How it's going with your startup, did you move to Canada
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Feeling bad now that I didn’t switch Job to a FAANG or similar.
Why not just apply for PR and move there?
Yup that's what I did. Planning to move there in 2022 Jan and start my own company.
The cutoff for express entry seems to have gone up and I'm consistently 20-30 points below it. You don't accumulate points for work experience or net worth but lose them for age.