Once you take the exchange rate into account, I'm below the 2nd percentile for a senior dev. And I make a great salary for the Vancouver area.

I knew I could double my salary south of the border, but that hurts.

I've heard it's very difficult to get H1B visa's now a days, so Canadians looking to move to the states, might not be able to.

Canadians have a TN visa option which is much simpler to get than H1B. There is no quota limit.

But software programmers don't qualify for TN visa. System analyst is the closes I think.

They do under either Engineer or Computer Systems Analyst, depending on the case.

They do if they have a Software (or otherwise) Engineering degree, and getting in as a CSA just means you need to have 'microservices' and 'managerial' duties in your role

Wrong. You just need to phrase it the right way. The government bureaucracy considers programmers as typists, and systems analysts as programmers.

And if the border guard doesn't like the wording, they'll reject you at the border.

I don’t know.. Vancouver is a great place to live!

We have global SWE footprint and, as a hiring manager/executive, I can tell you that cost is a factor, but it's not the only one for us.

If you can't do top work, I don't care how cheap you are. If you can, I don't need to chisel out the last penny that you're willing to take to show up to work.

I make less than $100K and despite my 10+ years experience I'm by no means underpaid, and I'm in Denmark, a rather expensive country to live in.

I also make less than $100k in Canada and I can live a comfortable life with no issues

You have to account for tax differences the numbers are pre-tax