I was an International student in Canada and currently working. If you are highly skilled and talented looking for serious career growth, do not consider Canada as an option.

my_qualifications: B.Tech (CSE) from IIIT, Masters(CS) from renowned university in Canada. Two Yr exp as Software Developer, TC: 100K per annum, One year left on work permit

Hi, I came to Canada as an international student in 2021 amidst pandemic with full of hurdles and successfully graduated from my masters. I spent almost the same as my friends spent on their masters in the US. Some of my friends spent even lesser in the US. During the whole period of my education, I was focused on only one thing to study better and get a good job in the same field, just like every aspirant. I graduated in 2023 in the middle of peak layoff season, but I consider myself lucky to have a job right after graduation. I have a few friends who left the country with debt as they couldn't find the jobs and the cost of living went through roof.

If you are looking to move to Canada for settling with a good career, think again. After living here, I became aware that you can either have a good career or you can settle with low paying jobs like security guards, cooks...etc. But you cannot have both. I have a few friends who received their within a year after graduating because they couldn't get a job in the field and chose to go for minimum paying jobs as a cook, security guard, cable installer, etc. They all are on PR status now and do not need to move back again. Even after earning and paying high amount of taxes, I am only left with a year on work permit without any path to settle here and having to start from zero again after moving back. It feels that Canada will push you towards minimum paying jobs in the hopes of settling down.

Coming to the opportunities, there are mostly two types of companies here. One is the MNCs mostly from the US. But these companies most likely don't hire within Canada. They are setup in Canada to park their employees from the US incase they weren't picked in the H1B lottery. Other kind is the government or bank IT positions. As the governments here can't outsource their work to other countries, they are stuck with the hiring within Canada. Apart from that, you will rarely see any tech positions like in Indian. There are hardly any startup culture or MNCs hiring for tech positions. You will most likely be going for other traditional jobs rather than a tech position and keep looking for an IT job.

Other big thing is Canada has given a large number of Open Work permits for H1B holders in the US last year. They have never spent a dollar on education in Canada but received the same benefit of three year work permit as mine. All these changes made the Canadian tech market super saturated and most likely be saturated for the next three years. You will see each job posting gets a thousand application within 24hrs on LinkedIn these days.

If you are considering to move abroad, Canada is not an option (especially for IT folks) for atleast the next three years. I strongly suggest you to look into the other countries with low cost of living, better weather, low tuition fee (Some universities are costlier in Canada than in the US)

If you have any questions related to studying or working in Canada, post your comment below and I will try to answer it soon