Salaries by Level: The Full Picture
These figures represent total cash compensation — base plus annual variable — in Canadian dollars. They exclude RSUs and options, which at certain employers represent the majority of total compensation. The Toronto market has enough Levels.fyi data now that candidates can benchmark their level with reasonable precision. What I tell every engineer I work with: go into every compensation conversation knowing your number, not a range. Ranges are anchors for the wrong side.
| Level | P25 | Median | P75 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior (0–2 yrs) | CAD 72,000 | CAD 85,000 | CAD 102,000 |
| Mid-Level (3–5 yrs) | CAD 102,000 | CAD 118,000 | CAD 145,000 |
| Senior (6–10 yrs) | CAD 142,000 | CAD 168,000 | CAD 205,000 |
| Staff / Principal (10+ yrs) | CAD 192,000 | CAD 228,000 | CAD 278,000+ |
| Engineering Manager (8+ yrs) | CAD 185,000 | CAD 220,000 | CAD 268,000+ |
Employer Type: The Gap That Actually Matters
In my experience placing senior engineers across North America, the employer-type conversation is the one that has the most impact on lifetime earnings — more than any individual negotiation tactic, more than staying vs leaving, more than any other single variable. In Toronto, that gap is substantial.
| Employer Type | Mid-Level Cash | Senior Cash | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Big Tech Canada offices (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) | CAD 168–215K | CAD 240–380K+ | Large RSU grants |
| Canadian Tech (Shopify, Cohere, Wealthsimple, Certn) | CAD 138–178K | CAD 195–295K | Meaningful equity |
| Series B+ Startups | CAD 118–158K | CAD 155–240K | Options with upside |
| Big Banks (RBC, TD, Scotiabank) | CAD 105–145K | CAD 148–210K | Pension, stability |
| Enterprise / MNCs | CAD 98–135K | CAD 130–188K | Variable |
The Canadian Big Banks are worth a serious look for engineers who value stability and total benefits packages — the defined-contribution pension plans and benefit packages at RBC and TD are genuinely superior to most startups. But if you're at senior level or above and total comp is the priority, the gap between a Google Canada or Shopify role and a bank tech role at the same level is typically CAD 60–120K annually. That gap compounds significantly over a career.
Toronto as the AI Corridor
I've been watching the Toronto AI ecosystem develop since Geoffrey Hinton's group at U of T began attracting serious industry attention. What's happened since 2020 is a genuine infrastructure build: Vector Institute is a world-class research hub, Cohere is one of the most credible large language model companies outside of the US hyperscalers, and OpenAI opened a Canadian office that is hiring aggressively. The demand for ML engineers, AI safety researchers, and LLM infrastructure engineers in Toronto in 2026 outstrips local supply by a wide margin. If this is your specialisation, you have meaningful leverage — both in negotiation and in the quality of opportunities available to you.
The Global Talent Stream (GTS) immigration pathway is one of Canada's genuine competitive advantages in this race. Two-week processing times for qualifying tech roles — compared to months or years for US H-1B — means Toronto can onboard globally mobile AI talent faster than almost any other jurisdiction. In my experience, this is a genuine recruitment advantage that Canadian employers are starting to use more aggressively in their hiring pitches to international candidates.
The USD Remote Question
One of the most interesting dynamics in the Toronto market right now is the growing number of engineers who are employed by US companies on USD salaries while living in Canada. The effective outcome — USD compensation taxed at Canadian rates, which are lower than US federal plus state rates at comparable income levels — creates a meaningful take-home advantage that many engineers haven't fully modelled. A senior engineer at USD 200K total comp, living in Ontario, is typically taking home more after tax than the equivalent US-resident counterpart, once you account for the absence of state taxes (Ontario's provincial rate is high, but no payroll tax, no Social Security/Medicare at the same combined rate as US). The 15–20% pay bump from USD over CAD is almost entirely captured in net terms when the tax differential is factored in.
Use the FreeFindTalent Salary Check to compare your current position against both CAD-denominated local roles and USD-denominated remote roles — the comparison is genuinely illuminating for many Toronto-based engineers.
Post-Shopify Market: Where Things Stand
Shopify's 2022 layoffs — and a subsequent round in 2023 — sent a genuine shock through the Toronto tech community. Shopify had been the anchor employer that set compensation norms across the ecosystem; when it cut significantly and moved to a more distributed model, it created both uncertainty and opportunity. The uncertainty: Toronto's most visible tech employer had pulled back. The opportunity: a cohort of highly skilled, product-oriented engineers became available in the market simultaneously, and many of the better-funded startups moved quickly to absorb them.
By 2026, the market has largely rebalanced. Shopify itself has stabilised and is hiring selectively at the senior level. The more important story is the diversification of Toronto's employer base — Cohere, Wealthsimple, and a set of well-funded AI and fintech companies have grown into meaningful employers in their own right, reducing the ecosystem's dependence on any single anchor company.
Montreal vs Toronto: The Honest Comparison
Montreal has genuine strengths — Element AI's legacy (now ServiceNow), Mila as a world-class AI research institute, and a significantly lower cost of living than Toronto. But the Toronto market is larger, more liquid, and more connected to US capital flows and hiring patterns. In my experience, engineers optimising for career optionality rather than a specific research track will generally find Toronto the stronger market. Montreal is the better choice if you're pursuing a research-oriented ML career and want proximity to academic collaborators.
What I'd Tell a Senior Engineer Looking at Toronto in 2026
Target the AI corridor companies first if your skills are in that space — the demand-supply gap means you have genuine pricing power. For engineers in other specialisations, the Big Tech Canada offices are the consistent top-of-market payers and should be your first filter. The Canadian bank tech roles are credible but carry a compensation ceiling that is real. And if you are considering the USD remote path, run the full net take-home model before anchoring to gross figures — you may find that a USD role from Toronto compares more favourably than you expect.