Oleksiy Marchenko
Senior Software Engineer, Toronto fintech startup (ex-Kyiv)Oleksiy spent nine years building backend systems in Kyiv before arriving in Canada via CUAET in 2022. He now leads distributed systems work at a Toronto-based fintech company, specializing in Go and Python. His path from emergency arrival to senior engineer with a permanent residency application in progress mirrors the journey of thousands of Ukrainian tech workers who chose Canada over other destinations.
This interview was conducted in May 2026. Salary figures reflect market data from job postings, community surveys and the interviewee’s direct experience. Individual results vary significantly by specialization, company stage and negotiation.
The coffee shop where we meet is three blocks from Oleksiy’s office in the King West tech corridor — the stretch of Toronto where startup density is high enough that you can eavesdrop on three different product roadmap discussions simultaneously. Oleksiy arrived in this neighbourhood indirectly: first a basement apartment in Scarborough, then a shared house in Parkdale, then this area, as his salary moved upward and his sense of the city sharpened. He has opinions about everything, delivered with the slightly self-deprecating honesty that Ukrainian developers seem to develop as a professional superpower.
We are here to talk about what the Canadian tech market actually looks like from the inside, not from a LinkedIn post or a government immigration brochure. Oleksiy agreed to give us real numbers, including the ones that do not flatter either country.
From Kyiv to Toronto: Why Did You Choose Canada?
Alex: Most Ukrainian IT professionals who left after February 2022 went to Poland, Germany or Portugal. Why Canada?
Oleksiy:Honestly speaking, Poland was my first thought. Geographically close, culturally familiar, my company had an office in Warsaw. But when I looked at salaries for senior backend engineers in Warsaw in early 2022, I was looking at roughly 15,000 to 20,000 PLN gross per month — maybe 3,500 to 4,500 EUR. In Kyiv I was already earning close to that in USD. The financial case for Poland was essentially: leave a warzone and take a pay cut. Not exactly compelling.
Canada was different. Let me give you a real number: a friend who had moved to Toronto in 2020 was earning CAD 145,000 as a senior Go developer. That’s roughly USD 105,000 at the time. Even accounting for the higher cost of living, that was a significant jump in purchasing power. More importantly, Canada meant real, permanent immigration options — not just a temporary protection status that could evaporate with a policy change. From my experience, Ukrainian developers who think long-term went to Canada, Australia or the US. The ones optimizing for speed went to Poland or Germany.
Getting There: CUAET, Work Permits and the Bureaucratic Reality
Alex: Walk me through your actual immigration path. CUAET was fast, but what came after?
Oleksiy:CUAET itself was genuinely fast — I had approval within two weeks of applying in March 2022. Arriving at the border was fine. The bureaucratic nightmare started after arrival. CUAET gives you authorization to enter and a pathway to get a work permit, but the work permit itself took another two months to process. During that time I could not legally work. I had savings, so I survived. Someone arriving with less financial cushion would have been in a very difficult situation.
For anyone following this path now, the landscape is different. CUAET closed to new applicants in July 2023. If you’re arriving today as a Ukrainian IT professional, your main options are the Global Talent Stream — which can get you a work permit in two weeks if your employer qualifies and you’re in a designated occupation like software engineer — or Express Entry if you already have points. The full CUAET guide explains the current status for those who already hold CUAET authorization. My current status is an open work permit pending a permanent residency application under the Canadian Experience Class. After one year of full-time Canadian work experience, you become eligible. I hit that threshold last year.
Ukrainian Developer vs Canadian Tech Market: What Is Really Different?
Alex: You had nine years of experience in Kyiv. How did that translate to the Canadian market?
Oleksiy:The technical skills transferred very well. Ukrainian developers, from my experience, have extremely strong fundamentals — algorithms, data structures, systems design. The culture in Kyiv’s IT industry was performance-driven and technically rigorous, partly because the Ukrainian market was competing for outsourcing contracts with Western clients who demanded high quality. So I was not behind technically. If anything, some of my Canadian colleagues were surprised by how much depth I had in distributed systems.
What did not transfer were the soft skills and cultural context. The Canadian tech workplace is flatter and softer in its communication style than anything I was used to. In Kyiv, if your code review had a problem, someone would say: “This is wrong, fix it.” In Toronto, the same feedback is delivered as: “I’m wondering if we might consider an alternative approach here?” These are the same message, but you have to decode one of them and the other is direct. I genuinely misread meetings for the first few months because I was treating hedged language as a soft preference rather than a professional requirement.
The other gap was Agile process discipline. In Kyiv, many companies used sprints and standups, but with varying rigour. In Canadian companies, especially in the fintech sector where I work, sprint ceremonies are treated as real commitments. You do not skip a retrospective because you’re busy. The process is part of the culture, not an optional layer on top.
If you’re looking at the broader picture of why Ukrainian IT specialists leave, the combination of safety, salary and immigration permanence is the consistent answer.
Salaries: What Ukrainian Developers Actually Earn in Canada in 2026
Alex: Let’s get specific. Real salary numbers for Ukrainian developers in Canada in 2026.
Oleksiy:Let me give you a real breakdown based on what I know from my network and job postings I see regularly. These are base salaries in CAD, Toronto market, 2026:
Junior (0–2 years Canadian experience): CAD 65,000 to 85,000. Many Ukrainian juniors arrive with significant Ukrainian experience but are hired at junior or intermediate level in Canada due to lack of Canadian references and the adjustment period. This is frustrating but common.
Intermediate (2–5 years or equivalent): CAD 90,000 to 130,000. This is where the salary becomes genuinely competitive versus European alternatives. A Ukrainian developer with three or four years of Canadian experience and solid English can target this range comfortably.
Senior (5+ years, or demonstrated technical leadership): CAD 140,000 to 185,000 at established Canadian companies, CAD 160,000 to 200,000+ at scale-ups and well-funded startups. My current total compensation is in the senior range, including equity.
Tech lead / staff engineer: CAD 180,000 to 240,000+ at competitive Canadian employers. US-headquartered companies paying in USD are an outlier — I know Ukrainian developers in Toronto on US remote contracts earning the equivalent of CAD 280,000 to 350,000. Those are exceptional cases but they exist.
The cost of living adjustment is real. A one-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto runs CAD 2,400 to 3,200 per month. You need to be earning at least CAD 90,000 to live comfortably as a single person. At CAD 130,000 and above, the financial picture becomes genuinely comfortable, which tracks with what I experienced after my first promotion.
The Toronto Tech Scene Through Ukrainian Eyes
Alex: How would you characterize Toronto’s tech ecosystem for someone arriving from Kyiv?
Oleksiy:Toronto is genuinely a serious tech market. The Canadian tech scene is not Silicon Valley, but it is not a minor league either. The city has real depth in fintech, health tech, AI infrastructure, and enterprise software. Companies like Shopify, which is headquartered in Ottawa but has significant Toronto presence, set a reference point for compensation that pulls the whole market upward. There is also a significant presence of US tech company engineering offices — Google, Amazon, Microsoft all have Toronto engineering hubs partly to access Canadian talent and partly as a hedge against US immigration constraints.
From a Ukrainian developer’s perspective, one practical advantage of Toronto is the community. There are enough Ukrainian developers here that you can find people who understand your specific journey. I found my current role partly through a referral from another Ukrainian developer I met at a Kyiv IT meetup that migrated online after 2022. That informal network is genuinely valuable for navigating the job market, negotiating offers and understanding what a fair salary looks like.
The competition for senior roles is real. Toronto attracts developers from India, Latin America, China, Eastern Europe and the US market. If you arrive expecting your Ukrainian credentials to speak for themselves without preparation — without Canadian-formatted CVs, without practicing for the specific style of technical interviews Canadian companies use, without references — you will be disappointed. The market rewards preparation.
Remote Work: An Alternative Path for Ukrainian Developers
Alex: Many Ukrainian developers are working remotely for US or European companies while physically in Canada. Is that a viable path?
Oleksiy:It depends on your immigration status, and this is an area where I have seen people make serious mistakes. On a CUAET work permit, you are authorized to work for Canadian employers. Working for a foreign employer on a Canadian work permit is a grey area at best and a violation at worst, depending on the contract structure. The Canadian government’s position is that a work permit ties you to a Canadian employer or a specific arrangement. If you are on a work permit and contracting remotely for a US company that has no Canadian entity, you are in a legally uncomfortable position.
The clean solution is an open work permit — which CUAET holders could convert to, or which you can obtain through other pathways — or permanent residency. Once you have an open work permit or PR, you can work for any employer, including foreign ones, from Canadian soil. This is where remote US contracts paying in USD become possible and lucrative.
From my experience, the Ukrainian developers I know who are earning the highest total compensation in 2026 are doing exactly this: they have Canadian status, they are physically in Toronto, and they are contracted to US tech companies paying USD salaries. They benefit from Canadian healthcare, the USD/CAD exchange rate, and the relative safety of Canada. It is an optimized path, but you have to get the status sorted first. For the economic context of why this matters, see the Ukraine economic recovery 2026 outlook — the gap between Ukrainian and North American salaries is not closing quickly.
Advice for Ukrainian Developers Considering Canada
Alex: If you were advising a Ukrainian developer today who is considering moving to Canada, what would you tell them?
Oleksiy:Three things. First: do not arrive without a financial cushion. The gap between landing and receiving your first Canadian paycheque is longer than people expect — even with a job offer in hand, permit processing, onboarding delays and first-month payroll cycles mean you may not see income for sixty to ninety days. Have at least CAD 15,000 to 20,000 accessible before you arrive. I have seen people arrive with good jobs lined up and still end up in financial stress because of processing timelines.
Second: invest in your English communication skills before you arrive, specifically in professional English. Technical English is different from conversational English. Being able to explain why your architecture decision was wrong in a post-mortem, or to negotiate a raise, or to give a performance review to a report — these require a register of English that most Ukrainian developers have not practiced. Take a business English course, watch Canadian tech conference talks, practice writing email in the style Canadian professionals use. This sounds minor until it is the thing holding back your promotion.
Third: get connected to the Ukrainian tech community in Canada before you arrive. There are Telegram groups, Discord servers, LinkedIn communities of Ukrainian developers in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities. These communities share job referrals, salary data, immigration advice and moral support. Use them. The Canadian tech job market is relationship-driven more than people expect, and a warm referral from a Ukrainian colleague who is already established here is worth more than a cold application to fifty companies.
For anyone interested in the broader immigration context, it is worth understanding why Canada immigration matters beyond just the salary picture. The stability, the social infrastructure, the long-term opportunity — these are real, but they take time to materialize. Canada rewards patience and persistence.
Quick 5: Tech Stack and Hot Takes
We closed with five fast questions for a direct read on Oleksiy’s perspective on the Canadian tech market.
Resources for Ukrainian Developers in Canada
If you are a Ukrainian software developer considering Canada, or already here and navigating the market, these resources are worth knowing:
- Ukrainian Tech Canada (Telegram community): active community of Ukrainian developers in Canadian cities, sharing job referrals, salary data and immigration experiences
- IT Ukraine Association: the main trade body for Ukrainian tech companies, with resources on global relocation and employment programs
- Global Talent Stream (IRCC): the fastest legal work permit path for tech workers with a qualifying Canadian employer offer — two-week processing for designated occupations
- Express Entry / Canadian Experience Class: the primary permanent residency pathway after one year of Canadian skilled work experience
- Uplift Ukraine: a nonprofit connecting Ukrainian tech professionals with Canadian employers, particularly for post-CUAET career transitions
- Ukraine innovation resources: for context on the Ukrainian tech ecosystem and post-war reconstruction opportunities, Ukraine Zoom covers the intersection of Ukrainian tech and international diaspora contributions
- Business services in Canada: Ukrainian entrepreneurs and freelancers establishing Canadian entities can find relevant guidance at Soleica, a Canadian digital services firm
Three Things to Remember
- The salary jump is real — but so is the cost of living. A senior Ukrainian developer can earn CAD 140,000 to 185,000 in Toronto. After rent, taxes and living costs, the net quality of life improvement is significant but not instant — plan for a twelve-to-eighteen-month adjustment period before you are genuinely comfortable.
- Technical skills transfer; soft skills need work. Canadian tech culture is flatter, softer in communication and more process-driven than Ukrainian tech culture. The developers who thrive fastest are those who prepare for this shift, not those who expect the technical merit to speak for itself.
- Status first, everything else after. Sort your immigration status before optimizing for salary. An open work permit or permanent residency unlocks remote US contracts and full labour market mobility. Building on a work-permit tied to one employer limits your options significantly.
