Transit Operator, $40.37 per hour after two years which translates to almost 80k of working minimum hours. All you need is a clean driving record.

If you are on the spare board, you can sign work or get rated based on seniority, and get first crack at over time. Doing this will push your annual salary past 100k.

The job was decent when I first started in 2015, but current work conditions and running time is starting to make it not so appealing. But I have decent seniority that I am able to sign work with built in overtime for each seasonal sign up

EDIT: Once you're under the TransLink umbrella, you will have access to all of the internal job postings, and what ever educational background you have, you can always move around

So on strike, time to hoard toilet paper?

How does TransLink work? I see their hiring and you start at $26? You have to suck it up with split shift? But I also dunno how it works since aren't they super broke and on the brink of bankruptcy? :pokerface:

Training wage starts at $28, once out of training then you're at $30, then it goes up every 8 months until you hit the top wage of $40.37

Starting out initially you're either on split shifts or crappy night work in Vancouver. Only way to avoid that initially is to put in a transfer request to work out of a different garage.


Every couple of years TransLink will put out from propaganda saying we broke as shit but eventually gets funded by federal and provincial money

Ahhh so sounds like AC strike is coming soon too

I've talked to a few ppl about it, and the pilot strike is 100% going to happen, but it shouldn't last. AC stands to lose 10m a day during the strike, and it'll take at least a week for all the kinks to be worked out after the strike.

Accountants start at $50-60K- > $70-90K by year 2/3.

Graduate at 21, and you'll at $70-90K with 0 talent by 22/23! They're a dime a dozen, we churn them out at BCIT / UBC DAP, any monkey can do it.

CPA by 24-29 and suddenly you're making $90-135K TC working < 20-30 hours a week in industry. If ya wanna stick it out to director+, sky has no limit. You're also pivoted to do consulting on the side or start your own SMB.

If you manage to make it into consulting (Not management), you're starting at $70-80K at most of the big 4's before bonus

What happened to the $250K salaries?

If you do customer support or customer success at a tech company (or anything similar to it) it can start around $45-65k. That's often for people with just a high school education if you have some related work experience.

If you're a software developer and do a couple solid co-op terms you can easily land a $100k+ job and lots more if you're really lucky (like with Amazon, Salesforce, Microsoft etc).

From what I can gather you can graduate from university with an average degree and find yourself a $50-60k job without a tonne of effort but it's the next step (getting promoted or moving to a bigger company that pays more for the same work) that's more challenging.

for tech? never really been in Canada for tech

always had to hop south of the border

Very hard even for tech boys, gotta go south. In most cases, you're 10-25+ years deep in your career for any other professional field. Plus you successfully climbed the ladder and didn't get stuck as a senior/manager.

Even breaking $200K total income, the best chance in Canada is
- WFH day job - $100-140K
- 2nd Job consulting / random side hustle - $10-50K
- Stock/Rental portfolio $10-35K/year

It does happen in Canada if you are either fairly senior at a Canadian company or you work for the Canadian arm of a big tech company.

Simple example: https://www.clio.com/about/careers/j...OSTING-3-1750/ (~$230k base)

If you're working for Amazon, Microsoft etc locally as a Sr. Product Manager (say 10 years experience) you can clear $250k quite easily after bonuses and stock.

I see a lot of managers not break $100 locally, managers at $80-$100. No ot pay cuz manager. I also see a lot of people in tech making $75-$110 and in so called senior developer positions too.

Locally it seems like you have to be at the VP or Director level to break 200 in most cases.

People like to throw around numbers like oh yea buddy makes this or this position makes that, I think people vastly underestimate roles and what’s required that pay 200+ locally.

And I’m talking about regular working salary, not working thousands of hours of OT or bonuses, stock options, etc.

Not true in my field…. But my field is asinine. Marine pilots make 500k. Harbor master makes 400k. Managers…. Well suffice to say they are well above those numbers.

VPs are like half a mill to 800k

The problem is getting in. You need relative marine experience. You cannot just say you row a kayak and sign up. In order to get relative marine experience you need to either start as a deck hand on a tug or be in the Canadian navy. It’s pretty hard getting in.

I’ve always said if you want money go become an underwater electrician or welder.

You just need a welding certification and a scuba license and boom you’re 500k a year plus.

The title manager gets thrown around too much. Everyone is a manager so the company can make them do more while paying them nothing.

Sales manager. You're either working at Forever 21 or Porshe.

I'm a Grill Manager and make $19.70 hr.

Go grill on bc ferries. It’ll get your foot in the door for marine

From my friends' accounts, Microsoft pays poorly in Vancouver. A senior PM was barely breaking 100k just before covid.

Amazon paid poorly in Vancouver as well before covid, a L5 top range was 150k salary + 5 figure signing bonus + 5 figure RSU. They had to double up everything during the craze. I have no idea where things are now as they aren't really hiring.

Apple senior is 220k in Vancouver ATM, can be variable based on the team.

Clio has a decent presence in Vancouver, though even then I question if that's a "real" job posting. A lot of postings aren't real it seems, they post but aren't actually hiring.

Tech is still a bit of a shit show all around. I'm always passively looking ever since I got laid off in 2022 and the pickings are slim. I am making well above non-FAANG Vancouver right now and if I lose this job it would SUCK.


This actually sounds about right ATM, but if you have a family it's unlikely you can pull off the 2nd consulting job/side hustle. The taxes beyond 250k also right don't make a ton of sense unless you can blow clean through the top tax bracket and land at 350+.

Most jobs that's not "professional" (ie lawyer, tech, specific skills like what Hobz says) is extremely hard to break the 100k mark. A manager at a fast food joint, or H&M isn't really all that great and unlikely to break 100k.

A 100k-200k salary job requires a lot skills that people who hold those jobs don't realize they already have and display everyday at their job, and it's not something that a 80k person can just drop in and tread water in, even if given all domain knowledge.

I'll take myself for an example. I am making 170k right now. I do my work everyday and I don't really think about it. But put 10 years ago me, or even 6 years ago me in my job, that younger me would look at myself like I'm god. It's something to think about when if all of a sudden you are feeling like you have imposter syndrome. And that's only the technical bit. There's the soft skills of being able to cut out all the BS from communications and pick out the little pieces of value.

That doesn't line up with anything I've been told or seen logged. You can see an ongoing log of local PM salaries here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?gid=0#gid=0

The range is pretty big and there are clearly some companies that pay shit but MS isn't one of them - using base pay isn't a good comp for them as so much of their comp is from stock and bonuses. The base may be $150k but all the Sr. PMs I know clear $250k there.

An L5 PM at Amazon is pretty junior though (relatively speaking) so clearing $200k all-in is pretty great. We're talking people with a few years of work experience getting this kind of job.

My Sr. Dev pal at Apple cleared $400k last year and I know a Sr. Designer at Stripe that did the same in year 1 there. Both local. EA, oddly enough, can pay really well depending on the role especially past year 3. Like this Director job which is base $194-270k while the bonuses there take you into $400k by year 2 and nearly $500k by year 3.

https://ea.gr8people.com/jobs/184881...lQRi_OBm-qWkbs

My shareholder reports and my insiders say those are real jobs and they are hiring very consistently. I'm very pleased with the performance of the company. :)

Edit: The reason it sometimes seems like Clio doesn't really hire for open postings is that they often don't hire locally even if the job is open here. They're kinda in nowhere land for hiring where they pay more than local companies but not as much as big tech and that specific tier of talent is hard to hire for locally (a lot of the ones that work for local companies aren't good enough and the ones at big tech don't want to give up the money)

I need a new job

I thought your f/t job was to find Golf Rs that you won't buy?

His fulltime job is his username

L6 and above are typically for ppl managers or engineering managers, or beyond senior isn't it? Their levels are quite broad iirc as L4 is entry level, L5 is intermediate to senior, and L6 is manager or staff/architech.



EA is an odd one. I encountered a job at EA back in 2014 that would have paid in the 140 range for some one with minimal experience. Obviously probably not easy to get hired and I was too chickenshit to try, but it's there.

Apple is again an odd one, each team can name their positions whatever they like, and band it whatever they want so no one position would be an equal match on another team. I am looking at some SR positions right now with them and they all top out a 210-220. I've seen some SR positions top out at 175, which reinforces the teams do whatever the heck they like.

Clio's office isn't that big in Vancouver, they are on Canada Way next to BCAA. I used to walk by there all the time. With me being in the QA world, I don't qualify for their jobs. I looked at their JDs and they do TDD and no QA so I don't match what they are looking for.



There's a lot of shitty tech ppl in Vancouver(but they exist everywhere), and I'm in an odd and potentially dying space of QA/SDET/performance testing. There's maybe 10 ppl that I would hire that I've worked with in the last 12 years of my career, the rest either can't code, can't think, can't communicate, or all of the above. We were hiring for SR SDETs at my previous previous job and our hiring rate at the phone screen was 1%, the hiring rate after technical was about 10%.

The $250K part was a joke (RS reference) but I see this thread took off in a different direction. :pokerface:

For someone like Badhobz, $250K is half his year's wage. :peek:

Yah straight to friggin spy balloon’s pocket. She gives me shit when I order mcdicks without a coupon. I keep telling her there isn’t a coupon for McDoubles.

Stupid cheap hoe

I'm at this point in my life now and now I'm like how do I make a career transition bc all the career advice is for new grads, whereas, I just have a shit load of experience but same education level as prior.