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Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#61

Post by mjn »

subsystem wrote: post #59
mjn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether 1800 USD/month for a one-bd apartment is expensive might depend on where you're coming from. That's not out of line with the going rates in many other major cities (SF, NYC, London, Paris), and might even be cheaper, if that's for a nice & centrally located apartment. But it's about 25% more expensive than Copenhagen, and 3x Berlin. One could also live in non-Stockholm parts of Sweden, like Göteborg or Malmö,…

Sweden just isn't made for a high income, high spending scenario. For instance most of the benefits (unemployment, sickness, parental etc.) have a cap. Taxes have also become more progressive in recent years.

Yeah, it depends on your occupation to some extent. If you're a software engineer, the rent:income ratio in NYC might be better: more expensive apartment, but you can pull down huge piles of money programming for a finance company. But if you work in a large range of regular jobs, Scandinavia is a lot more affordable. The rent:income ratio in NYC if you're working at a grocery store is terrible, while it's somewhat better in Stockholm or Copenhagen. People who work hourly-waged jobs can own apartments in Copenhagen and live middle-class lives, which is virtually impossible in SF, NYC, or most other major cities.

Compressed salaries basically, so the high end is lower and the low end is higher. I generally like that, since it means I can have friends in different occupations without huge socioeconomic gaps between us. But it means the income at the high end doesn't buy the same lifestyle. It's nonetheless enough to buy a good lifestyle, imo: as someone around the 80th percentile in Copenhagen incomes I live "somewhat better" than the median income earner, but the median is already living a pretty decent lifestyle.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#62

Post by seivan »

davewasthere wrote: post #55
seivan wrote: post #9

Be ready to pay up for a place to stay in Stockholm, I'm native and I gotta stay in queue in order to get to rent. There is no free market for apartments - at least not for rentals. You can take your chance at the Swedish equivalent of Craigs List or get to know someone. I've given up and decided to buy. Taxes aren't as high as people complain about, unless you're a freelancer. Small businesses get screwed royally an…

Religious extremism in Sweden? And I thought it was one of the most secular countries in the world... At least it's snow on your train tracks. Here in the UK, leaves, rain and yes, even sunshine can delay our trains... :-)

Yup, Sweden wins in atheism, but religious extremism is both breed and imported here. They also tend to generate more off springs than secular ones.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#63

Post by MortenK »

NonEUCitizen wrote: post #17
MortenK wrote: post #14

A couple of things: You have to be absolutely certain that they will supply living and work permit for both you and your family. Immigration laws are very strict in Scandinavia, so you'd obviously want to be certain there won't be any nasty surprises with getting your wife and children here. Living costs in Moscow and Stockholm is not that far from each other. A full-time position as a front-end developer usually won…

Sweden has implemented the Blue Card scheme, so work permits should now be simpler for highly skilled migrants: http://www.workpermit.com/news/2013-08-23/sweden-joins-eu-bl...

I didn't know about the blue card, and yeah in theory it looks to make things easier. However like with many EU regulations, there's a nice idea behind but quite often a very different reality.

Individual countries can and do override EU regulations. Sometimes even illegally. Getting local laws overturned in the EU court system is an exercise in futility though.

You'll also notice a long list of requirements, some of which can be very hard to live up to. As an example Sweden doesn't recognize Russian university degrees. You'd need a year or two extra of a special "top-up" education in Sweden, depending on your field, to have a "valid" bachelor or candidates degree. To get that though, you'd need the living permit which you can't get without the degree... At least through the blue-card method. This kind of catch-22 situations grounded in bureaucracy and red tape are very common in Scandinavia. Sweden is much better than for example Denmark though, but it can still be extremely frustrating.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#64

Post by MortenK »

pathy wrote: post #27
MortenK wrote: post #14

A couple of things: You have to be absolutely certain that they will supply living and work permit for both you and your family. Immigration laws are very strict in Scandinavia, so you'd obviously want to be certain there won't be any nasty surprises with getting your wife and children here. Living costs in Moscow and Stockholm is not that far from each other. A full-time position as a front-end developer usually won…

>Front-end contracting is typically full-time contracts on-location for between 6 and 12 months. It typically pays 100+ USD an hour, meaning a monthly income of 16K USD or so given a standard 40 hour workweek. A lot of those 16K will go away in taxes and social costs though. I am not sure what most freelancers use for estimates but somewhere between 50-75% should probably be deducted before getting a comparable numbe…

Yeah that's true, expect around 50-55% of any pay (contracting or salary) to go to the tax man. As an employee, you get 6 weeks paid holiday, 5-8% of your salary in pension and you also get paid when you are ill. When you are contracting you get none of those things. A good rule of thumb is to deduct 20-25% of the contractor pay to reach comparable employee salary.

Still, 25% off 16K is 12K before tax. As a full-time frontender in Stockholm, you'd generally be around 5-6K before tax.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#65

Post by FireBringer »

mrmekon wrote: post #48
dan1234 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you find there's any language barrier or have you picked up the language?

I'm terrible with languages... it will probably take 5 years to reach 'conversational' levels. My company is extremely international, and all business is done in english, so there is no problem. Other companies I interviewed with did bring it up as a problem. Startups seem to care very little, major corporations care a lot.

I would think that since you are living in the country if you take a night course (or something equivalent) you could probably learn a lot quicker than someone living outside the country.

Immersion helps a lot for languages.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#66

Post by mjn »

FireBringer wrote: post #65
mrmekon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm terrible with languages... it will probably take 5 years to reach 'conversational' levels. My company is extremely international, and all business is done in english, so there is no problem. Other companies I interviewed with did bring it up as a problem. Startups seem to care very little, major corporations care a lot.

I would think that since you are living in the country if you take a night course (or something equivalent) you could probably learn a lot quicker than someone living outside the country. Immersion helps a lot for languages.

Immersion helps, but it's pretty easy not to become immersed in Scandinavia, because everyone both speaks good English, and switches to it quite quickly when they realize you're a foreigner. It's possible to ask them to please speak Danish/Swedish/Norwegian because you're learning, and many people will then switch back, but the immediate switch to English is basically default (especially in Denmark).

I've lived in Denmark for 2 1/2 years and probably have had less real need to speak Danish here than in the 3 weeks I spent in Spain! More Spaniards are either unable or unwilling to speak English, so that trip was much more immersive language-wise, in that I actually had to interact in Spanish.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#67

Post by karhu »

mrmekon wrote: post #30

I moved to Stockholm from the US earlier this year. The salary is supposedly good for Stockholm, but about 20-30% lower than offers I had in the US. I took it because I particularly loved the idea of living in Sweden, and I was not disappointed. Comparing the cost of living is difficult. I don't know anything about the lifestyle in Moscow, but the US is so extremely different from Sweden that it turns out I did all o…

I'm having thoughts on moving from Stockholm to the US (NJ or NY). It would be interesting to know how e.g. taxes are different between the US and Sweden.

Where do I find information like this? Taxes, costs of living - everything. How did you do before you moved to Sweden?

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#68

Post by sentenza »

mjn wrote: post #66
FireBringer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that since you are living in the country if you take a night course (or something equivalent) you could probably learn a lot quicker than someone living outside the country. Immersion helps a lot for languages.

Immersion helps, but it's pretty easy not to become immersed in Scandinavia, because everyone both speaks good English, and switches to it quite quickly when they realize you're a foreigner. It's possible to ask them to please speak Danish/Swedish/Norwegian because you're learning, and many people will then switch back, but the immediate switch to English is basically default (especially in Denmark). I've lived in De…

Don't be to hard on the Spanish. I lived there for some time and can attest to that most Spaniards really would like to improve their English but find it incredibly difficult to do so. This is especially true for the spoken language.

My personal theory is that Spanish Spanish (i.e., from Spain) has a range of spoken sounds that is to a large part complimentary to that of English, thus making the transition between these two languages particularly difficult. (Note that there is significantly less of a difference between the sounds of American Spanish and English).

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#69

Post by fsniper »

pathy wrote: post #21
fsniper wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are currently making $7-$10k on average, why would you relocate to an foreign country and make less on a monthly base? Also seems like you are married with 2 children. Relocating your family will be more expensive than your first thought because most probably you will have to cover their visa expenses. You all need to get familiar with "aliens". If I were you I would offer remote service to that company but wo…

There might be benefits other than the wage that make up for it. I am not sure about Russian healthcare and so forth but free healthcare, education, childcare (cheap at least) and such might make up for it.

That's fair but I believe these can be accounted by lower than the difference of monthly revenues.

Re: Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

#70

Post by mrmekon »

karhu wrote: post #67
mrmekon wrote: post #30

I moved to Stockholm from the US earlier this year. The salary is supposedly good for Stockholm, but about 20-30% lower than offers I had in the US. I took it because I particularly loved the idea of living in Sweden, and I was not disappointed. Comparing the cost of living is difficult. I don't know anything about the lifestyle in Moscow, but the US is so extremely different from Sweden that it turns out I did all o…

I'm having thoughts on moving from Stockholm to the US (NJ or NY). It would be interesting to know how e.g. taxes are different between the US and Sweden. Where do I find information like this? Taxes, costs of living - everything. How did you do before you moved to Sweden?

Taxes are easy to look up. There are calculators where you input your salary and the state you will live in and it'll spit out a pretty close number. Expect somewhere around 30% income tax for a middle-class salary.

Numbeo is ok for comparing the cost of items, but it's not clear how your consumption will change. My consumption is much lower in Stockholm.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

Cars are expensive, but hopefully you don't need one if you're looking at NY metro.

The big differences that are harder to predict are insurance, healthcare, and retirement. Healthcare costs can be sudden, large expenses ($2-20k USD) even if you have insurance through your employer... to be safe, you need to keep a pretty gigantic emergency fund. If you don't have insurance through your employer, you will probably bankrupt.

Children, college, and retirement cost more than you will ever earn. Don't do any of those things!

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