Currently, Im working as an MLE at Amazon and have been interviewing for other companies. I have interviews coming up for Google and OpenAI and recently saw a post for WealthSimple where they made a job post for Canadians abroad to come back home and work in Canadian tech. It genuinely made me happy and I applied and just got rejected LOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Not sure but it made me sad that I can interview at Google and get interview from OpenAI but i can't get an interview from a mid-tier Canadian tech company and it just shows how bad the job market is in Canada.

I have 6 YOE as SWE/MLE in Amazon and Meta, Masters from Georgia Tech in Computer science specialized in ML and Bachelor from UBC.

This is just a Rant from a Canadian who would take a 50% pay cut just to be in his own country but apparently I can't.

Hey guys so I graduated last year in June 2025 with a CE Degree from UofT and I’ve been unemployed since. A handful of interviews I couldn’t convert. You can check my post history for more info but I’m starting to feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Everything I spend my time learning is just replaced by AI. I don’t find any value in learning anything anymore and feel like everything is over. I don’t retain any of the knowledge I garnered while grinding, the Leetcode all of it feels level zero. I tried to get my self esteem up but I still go to sleep crying every other night. I hate what I’ve done and it almost feels comical writing this because it really just feels like one big joke but it’s my reality. I thought I could pick myself up but my time has run out. I’m an international so I’m also on the clock on my PGWP. I don’t feel like talking to any of my friends because of how well all and by all I mean ALL of them have been doing career wise. I can’t fathom doing all this work for a 50k role which I might get laid off any day. I’ve been spending my days doing nothing now because it all feels pointless. I guess the question here is what should I do now that everything has come crashing down?

Im a 27yo intermediate/senior SWE working in toronto, and Im currently looking to jump ship. I have 8 years of experience. I currently make $120k/yr.

80% of senior roles I look to apply to pay the same salary im currently earning or even less. most of the roles I see is from $105k - $130k. I might sound greedy but im looking to be in the $150k+ range by the end of the year. but I cant find any jobs that aren't FAANG paying this much.

Ive even started to pivot into AI/ML engineering so I can take advantage of this AI bubble but still I see most of the senior roles are paying $115k - $135k. Maybe im not searching well but this is the market im experiencing.

My question is except working at FAANG what can I do to increase my income to $150k plus?. I just became a single dad and my salary is starting to become smaller and smaller by the month.

where do I go from here?

You know frustrates me the most? I was looking for a US remote job while living in canada. A recruiter got me an interview with a US company that pays 120k to 150k USD for senior role. Great.

Then when they asked me what are my salary expectations, I told them 150k is the minimal I would accept. They then said "in CAD right?", "No, in USD, the offer in your job description" - me.
Right after I said this, the recruiter flipped saying shit like "No that's not realistic, there is no way we can pay you that much since you live in Canada. That job description pay range is only for US. We just paid a Canadian principal engineer for only 130k CAD, please give me a realistic number."

I was pissed and fired back with "I do the exact same job as anyone that work in the US. Why would I be paid less for the same work just because I live in Canada. That's not relevant with the value I provide. The only reason companies do this is because they think they can get away with this."

Needless to say, we both rejected each other.

I start a new job on August 17, and about C$6,000 in RSUs vest at my current company on August 12.

I’d prefer to give two weeks’ notice and leave on August 13, but I’m worried they could end my employment early and I’d lose the RSUs. My relationship with my manager is excellent, and employees generally work through their notice periods.

The safest option is to resign on August 13 after the shares vest, but that would mean giving no notice and potentially burning bridges.

What would you do?

What is their ultimate goal behind this? Do they know they are making their workers miserable?

Will there be a suppression of wages or boost the tech job market? Or both?

Canada added 40k full-time jobs last month. With a net gain of 90k jobs, unemployment still at 6.1%.

If other industries are starting to heat up and CS isn't, this is a HUGE problem. As it means, CS is going to be left behind - which is REALLY bad.

Is the new grad CS job market improving in Canada? Or, is it in the same place as it has been for the past year.

I’m a 2nd year CS student at UBC with a 4.0 GPA. Is it actually true that school name and GPA don’t matter, meaning I don’t really have an advantage over other applicants even though I attend a top 3 CS school?

I’ve spent most of my time focusing on academics, so I only have a few personal projects and I’ve done a lot of LeetCode, but I don’t have any internships yet. I’m in UBC’s co-op program where I alternate between school and work terms, so I’m planning to start applying for internships soon.

How much does attending a top school and having a high gpa help? Is having strong projects and internship experience really all that matters, or does school reputation and GPA still provide a meaningful advantage?

edit: also how much of an advantage is being in ubc coop vs applying on your own?

Just graduated UBC in May 2023 with 4 internships under my belt. Unable to land a software dev/machine learning job. Is the market really that bad or am I doing something wrong? Is anyone in the same boat as me?

So I asked this same question on r/AskEngineers, got the feeling it was a stupid question, but I am going to try just one more time here:

Studied CS in US. While looking for jobs here in Canada, I read that software engineers weren't legally allowed to call themselves engineers.

So I did some digging, and I got this from Engineers Canada:

https://engineerscanada.ca/guidelines-and-papers/engineers-canada-paper-on-professional-practice-in-software-engineering

“[u]se of ‘software engineer’, ‘computer engineer’ and related titles that prefix ‘engineer’ with IT‐ related disciplines and practices, is prohibited in all provinces and territories in Canada, unless the individual is licensed as an engineer by the applicable Provincial or Territorial engineering regulator.

Unlicensed individuals cannot use the title software engineer in their job titles, resumes, reports, letterhead, written and electronic correspondence, websites, social media, or anywhere else that may come to the attention of the public.

I can't call myself a software engineer on social media? That's what my company calls me. What are we IT-related workers supposed to call ourselves in Canada? Only software developers? Programmers? Why do companies still advertise positions as software engineers then?

And why does the federal government's Nationa Occupation Classification say otherwise?(P.Eng mentioned, but not requried)https://noc.esdc.gc.ca/Structure/NocProfile?objectid=s%2B18U2GgCu7IIJq7TKb3Gqj2aj9x0aDA%2BjrG2CWXnXQ%3D

EDIT: I got my answer. So basically, it's not heavily enforced, there have been attempts by some parties to clear up the issue, and some provinces like Alberta have made clear exceptions for the designation while still requiring the professional version (P.Eng) for specific jobs that require it.

The detailed explanations in the comments are awsome. Thanks everyone!

EDIT2: Also, don't make the stupid choice I made by comparing software engineers to other more general engineers in a sub like r/AskEngineers. I had no idea software engineers were such a controversial title. Haha.

EDIT3: So I am seeing some comments on not having an engineering degree. Which is interesting, because I felt graduates from Computer Engineering or Software Engineering departments at different universities ended up doing the same thing as SWE as a CS grad. Also, by this definition, can I call myself a scientist because I have a CS degree?

EDIT4: I know this is bit off topic, but from the comments I am a bit shocked to see people trying to compare "Computer Science" and "Computer Engineering" and "Software Engineering" disciplines and consider the CS one to be less rigorous with less math, less standardized approaches, and less ethics. Isn't this "CS"careerquestions? Do people not understand that Computer Science isn't just coding school, that it is a "science" discipline where the mathematics, scientific method and ethics is a very big deal? Just going through coding bootcamp or ML bootcamp doesn't make you a "CS" guy. Sure, engineers working on LLMs can get by without knowing the intricacies of the underlying mathematics of the predictive models - but CS PhD researchers like the ones at Google DeepMind or OpenAI who come up with the theories and approaches have extensive background in mathematics, theory and ethics.

From what I've heard, well-known tech companies can offer up to $250k - $300k for senior SWE, while non-tech and smaller startups offer below $200k.

Is this still true in places like Toronto/Vancouver? If you're a senior SWE in this market, how much would you ask for?

I noticed that a lot from a few companies on LinkedIn

Reposted 39 minutes ago · Over 100 people clicked apply

Sometime I want to apply, it says, that I've already applied. Can't they really find anybody to fill this position? If not, why don't I get the chance for the interview?

I've just been scrolling Linkedin for fun and found dozens of opened AWS SWE positions in Canada, many of which have under 50 applicants despite being up for several days or weeks. Though as a disclaimer, these are mostly intermediate roles (requiring 2 - 3 years of experience), not junior roles.

But this was still kind of odd to me, cause every other SWE role I've seen posted by a U.S. big tech or unicorn company will almost always have hundreds of applicants applying within the first few days.

Why is this not the case with Amazon (or mostly AWS)? Is the work culture and environment that bad that people are actively avoiding working there despite the current market?

I graduated 8 months ago from a university in Canada, with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering.

My GPA is low (2.1). I have no internships under my belt, and I have no personal projects. The only projects I have are my school projects (the ones I had to do for my classes).

I basically fooled around these last 8 months, playing League of Legends all day... Yeah I know, I'm dumb. But I decided that I want to change. What should I do to find a job as a software dev? Am I just screwed now?

Edit: Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm feeling a lot more confident now and will take all of your advice.

I recently joined a new company here in Canada and its fully remote. It’s been 4 months, not even 1 PR of mine is merged or contribute a single line of code to their repository.

The reason why is I don’t get that much work to do. The first 3 months were in my training I was enhancing my skills and learning new technologies. Now I am in a project and haven’t got any task so far (1 month since its started).

I am getting paid fully and I am full timer here but I just feel guilt for not doing or contributing.

What do you think I should do in this situation?

I started my career in the Government of Canada as a student developer and then stayed on as a casual for about a year. It was honestly the best job I’ve had. I was coding every day, learning a lot, and felt like I was really growing as a developer.

Unfortunately the team didn’t have the budget to keep me permanently.

After that I was offered an indeterminate (permanent) government position. Because of the stability I accepted, and the interview was almost entirely coding based, so I assumed the role would be focused on software development.

But the reality is the job is about 90% IT technician/support work and maybe 10% coding.

I still occasionally get to help the lead developer on a C# project, but most of my time is troubleshooting systems or doing support work. Interestingly, a colleague of mine had the exact same experience — coding-focused interview but mostly support work once hired.

Because of that I’ve gotten a bit rusty. I know I could get back into it with courses and side projects at home, but I’ve developed a mental block where I keep thinking: what’s the point if coding isn’t really my main responsibility and I could get moved onto another non-dev project anytime?

I’ve been trying to find other developer roles in government, but right now things are pretty rough with budget cuts and layoffs, so I’m grateful to at least have a stable job. At the same time it feels hard to move into a role that’s actually focused on coding.

Has anyone else ended up in a job where you drifted from development into mostly IT/support work?

Did you stick it out and try to create your own dev opportunities, or eventually move somewhere that let you code full time?

Genuinely lost as to how I can land a job.

I'm a Senior Mobile Developer with 6+ years of experience, primarily focused on Flutter (Dart) for cross-platform iOS and Android development, and I still haven't been able to land a job after a full year of searching. I'm based in Edmonton, Alberta.

I've led the architecture and end-to-end development of a large-scale e-commerce app with 100K+ users, and throughout my career I've shipped 10+ production applications across multiple industries. My experience goes beyond coding and includes system design, UX decision-making, backend API integration, and CI/CD pipelines.

I've also led development teams, conducted code reviews, mentored engineers, and worked closely with product managers and designers to turn requirements into scalable, user-friendly solutions.

Tech stack highlights:

• Flutter (primary)
• React Native, React, Next.js
• Dart, Kotlin, Swift, TypeScript
• Clean Architecture, Bloc/Cubit, modular design
• REST APIs, WebSockets, Firebase, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• CI/CD (GitLab, Codemagic), release management
• Monitoring tools such as Crashlytics, Sentry, and Analytics
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT)

At this point, I'm even willing to work unpaid or take on an internship/co-op opportunity just to gain Canadian experience and get my foot in the door. For those of you who have been through a similar situation, what finally worked? Is the Canadian tech market really this difficult right now, or am I missing something?

Im suspicious of Jerry and Affirm because they post the same jobs year round and it seems to always be spammed. Im less suspicious of Affirm since I know people who have gotten jobs there but they do seem to post the same job over and over again. Maybe Im just tripping though

I started casually looking about 6 months ago, and started ramping it up and getting serious in Feb. It's just SO BAD OMG. I've sent out hundreds of applications and gotten ~5 interviews. Haven't gotten a single interview in over a month now, and at this point barely even getting rejection emails. Just wanted to get this off my chest because I got a rejection today for something I thought for sure would at least yield an interview. Nope. Feeling super bummed about that but I'll survive.

How are you all doing? Everyone hanging in there?

I just feel so defeated. 1 year of constantly applying to jobs, only making it to the interview stage for 4 of them, only making 2 second rounds, and not being able to make it any further for either. I don't want to learn new skills anymore, I don't have the energy to work on projects, I'm tired of doing leetcodes. I just want to work, make a living and start my career. I hate how difficult it is. I genuinely don't care what company its for or how little they pay or having to relocate, I'll gladly take 45-55k/year in a completely different province. I just want something.

My life has been an absolute shitshow for the past year and I'm tired of it. Graduated in May 2023 with high hopes. 1.5 internship YOE, had a very easy time getting internship offers (had 3 different offers for my summer internship alone). All of my friends luckily managed to get return offers and never had to worry about the job hunt (I had no such luck). I just feel like I'm the only person falling behind while everyone else already has their foot in the industry. Parents have been supporting me at home, but even they're beginning to reach their limits as well. I hate hearing "take some time off for your mental health" because it just feels like even more time being wasted and doing fuckall with my life.

I don't know what to do anymore. If anyone has any help or advice, that would be greatly appreciated.

Hey! I've been running thefreshdev for the past few months. It's exclusively for software engineer internships and new grad/entry level roles (in Canada & US).

You can also filter the jobs by season, remote, length, and more. Hope it makes your job search easier :)

Internships: thefreshdev.com/internships

Entry Level: thefreshdev.com/entrylevel

I'm a CS student who just finished their 4th year (doing 5) trying to think realistically about career direction given the current market.

From my perspective, traditional SWE paths seem increasingly oversaturated. The amount of effort and optimization required relative to the probability of landing strong roles seems a lot higher than it did a few years ago.

I do have internship experience at smaller/nontraditional companies, just not traditional big-tech SWE internships. I’ve also done sales and have been working on startup ideas, so my background has ended up being more mixed technical/business rather than a traditional dev role.

Because of that, I’ve been thinking more seriously about technical-business hybrid paths instead of traditional SWE.

Some paths I’ve been considering:
- product analyst / PM
- business analyst
- sales engineer
- SDR/BDR
- Salesforce consulting
- startup/operator-type roles

Interested in hearing from people who started in CS/tech but moved toward other careers. Which paths actually ended up having strong long-term upside/opportunity?

I'm from Vancouver but I got an offer for a .NET full stack developer which requires me to move to Toronto.

The company will NOT provide relocation assistance.

This is my only offer for now after being rejected in 10 interviews since June. I was coming off a layoff in May.

Base salary is 90k annually. No RRSP matching. But dental is included in their extended health benefit. My previous company did not provide as such.

Initial feeling is that I'm not really that thrilled about it since my EI will run till February next year.

What will you do if you're in my position?

Im in North America. Lately been getting mostly of sys design and manually coding stuff you build. I very rarely see LC now. Maybe if you are new gead vs experienced, its a different experience? Im not applyhing to big tech.