131–140 of 204 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dude, have you ever actually been to Scandinavia? Because wow, those are some deep misconceptions.
Lived here all my life. https://www.quora.com/How-are-Danes-Norwegians-Swedes-and-Fi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"please fill me in here Norwegians, Danes and Finns!" Well, Skype is half-Danish, so there's that :-) Others that I know of are Unity (founded in Copenhagen), Zendesk (started in Copenhagen), Steelseries, Endomondo, Just-Eat, Tradeshift, Trustpilot, Flying Tiger, Sitecore, TC Electronic, Soundboks, Navision. It kinda depends on how you define "startup". Bu no, not quite as many as Sweden, but we do have our own estab…
t.c. electronics is 40 years old (and legendary) and probably shouldn't be on that list IMO.
It was a startup at one point, though ;-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Swedes are very different from, say, Norwegians. Swedes are forthcoming and ambitious; if you succeed in your ambition, you're celebrated by your countrymen (so long what you're doing is in the politically correct sphere). You're allowed to be proud of your achievements. Norwegians keep their head down; most seem content with what little they have. If you do achieve more success than your average countrymen, you're s…
> Norwegians keep their head down; most seem content with what little they have. Are you aware that Norway is one of the richest countries in the wold?
They don't have a neighbour who has created a multi-million dollar company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a former tech recruiter in Stockholm I can assure you that they do. These devs, however, usually do not have a degree from university/college, and are either juniors and/or self taught. If you look at the university/college educated devs the story is different, but not by that much. Entry level median salary for devs without higher education from the year I left recruitment (2013/2014) was 28000 USD per year. Add…
I would still be very surprised if any developer in Stockholm is paid $25k a year as OP says. That's less than 17k SEK a month. I also don't think your numbers are valid anymore. The demand on developers is completely crazy in Stockholm right now. Even with minimum prior experience you shouldn't settle for anything less than 25k a month.
I had a look at some old notes and stats from 2012-2013. Knowledge in JS, Php, Java, Python or C/C++ were required for all of the positions.
14 recruits in the 18-20 yr, no edu bracket (high school dropouts/just graduated), mean salary 24451 USD (199200 SEK)
24 recruits in the 18-20 yr, bootcamp/vocational edu bracket (high school dropouts/just graduated), mean salary 27249 USD (222000 SEK)
17 recruits in the 20-22 yr, bootcamp/vocational edu bracket, mean salary 28869 USD (235200 SEK)
29 recruits in the 20-26 yr, higher edu bracket, mean salary 34467 USD (280800 SEK)
These were placed with employers, startups and established companies, in the tech sector. Mainly in central Stockholm and Kista (tech hub outside of Stockholm).
Make what you will of this, the amount of job seekers with bootcamp/vocational education hasn't gotten less than in 2012/2013. I believe this keeps the salaries in Stockholm down, and makes you settle for less if you want the job at all. Entry level salaries for devs in Stockholm are low.
BUT - as soon as you get some experience under your belt, you can rise quickly in salary by job hopping for a year or two.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're fired for cause, they deny unemployment benefits. You can't just stop doing your job, show up drunk, and yell obscenities at your boss all day. Well, you can, but you probably won't get unemployment benefits.
If you show up drunk or with anger management problems, the company is by law required to provide you with professional help. If that doesn't work, they can fire you and your benefits kick in from day 1.
Sadly, I have not just one - but two friends who have lost their jobs for showing up incapacitated. One wasn't alcohol, though. They were stuffed full of amphetamines - but the first one was drunk. Neither mentioned any employer offers of rehab.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. china and russia beg to differ?
There are many great Russian and Chinese developers but little Russian or Chinese software has spread outside those countries. Except viruses, maybe
Contrast with, say, an African child of well-to-do parents who has access to computers and the Internet but who doesn't (yet?) speak English. Good luck finding lots of coding resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Finnish (the lang is nowhere near English) and I've begun coding in my early 20s and I'm a technical co-founder (who actually knows his stuff). I don't think language is the reason here. Good education, smart people, good safety nets and a culture of doing things well & properly are IMHO better explanations. About the culture thing: go to anywhere in Europe/World and you'll find out that the Nordic countries in g…
Are you saying Frances broken door knobs and fondness for kitsch is holding them back?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still doesn't explain why I can't name a hugely popular programming language, library or framework created by a French programmer but several by Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Dutch, all small countries but where English is a very strong second language. I'm sure there are great French programmers and programming languages, but doesn't is strike you as remarkable that there are not more? From a country of 5 million (…
Does England produce a lot of languages/frameworks? I encounter quite a few French developers internationally (with relatively bad English skills...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. china and russia beg to differ?
There are many great Russian and Chinese developers but little Russian or Chinese software has spread outside those countries. Except viruses, maybe
For US companies, acquiring an overseas company provides an easy way to repatriate cash without having to pay the higher levels of tax on it. Note that a number of successful Swedish startups were acquired either by US companies or by international conglomerates with a strong US presence. That's not a coincidence.