Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?

I have been freelancing from home in Moscow, Russia for 4 years now as a frontend developer and as a self-taught UI/UX specialist. There were good and bad times in regard to work/life balance, money, clients and myself. I am not a famous rockstar freelancer, but during recent 2 years I have been earning $7-$10k per month average, making my clients quite happy and being able to support my wife and our two children. Before starting freelancing I had been working for 8 years at a local publishing house where I got from an ordinary designer to a head of IT dept serving 20+ daily/monthly editions.

Now I feel like I am ready to perform a next step in my life, in regard to my career. Recently I have received a job offer from a company in Stockholm doing a software as a service, for a position of a frontend developer. I had a talk via Skype with a couple of representatives of the company and in the end they offered me to visit their office to have a detailed talk as they seem to be quite content with skill I have shown so far. Surely they offer benefits, work permit visa and other things like a vacation, insurance.

I googled for average salaries for a position like mine there in Stockholm as well as in other Sweden cities. I have also found some more info about life there, costs, conditions, climate and so on. I know 'average salary' doesn't give much info about my specific potential salary I can get there. But at least I see the range and it's quite different from my current income knowing that I will have to pay for an apartment, likely pay more for food and other things I don't yet know about. On the other hand, may be it will be a good start for me to go networking, finding new opportunities, improving my skills.

So, please advise, what things I should consider while deciding? Did you face similar choice when you were offered with a job while you were freelancing? How did you choose to accept or to reject a full time job? What are important factors for you? Can it be a real move forward or more like a deadlock turning me into a small gear in a big mechanism? How can I setup my priorities properly not to say in a year or two I have had lost them?

I know many of the questions are subjective but I would like to hear from people who were in the same situation like mine.

Thanks!

I can tell you a little about Sweden's culture, as I've just moved to Sweden as part of a study abroad program at my university in the USA. Sweden is amazing; it's very clean, and there is very little crime here. The average standard of living here is very high, and as a result, Sweden is crazy expensive. Also, Swedes can be kind of cold. Someone in one of my classes told me that it is uncommon for Swedes to make new friends after 21. Maybe that person was exaggerating, but I have noticed that people here are less open. The tech scene is very welcoming though. I've been to a few tech events around the city, and the people there have been very helpful and nice. I think Stockholm is a great place to live, and if you have a salary that matches the standard of living here (unlike my student budget), I think you will enjoy it.

Can you ask them to pay you sufficiently?

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 and don't get much support compared to larger ones, but as an employee you will have it decent. You get what you pay for. Compared to say in Singapore, where you pay nada, and get nada. Some people like it.

Crime and religious extremism is in all time high. They do correlate to some degree. I lived in SG for two years, and I felt incredibly safe there (not even locking our door) coming back to Sweden, I feel a but more paranoid about having my laptop in my outside compartment of my bag.

I'm too scared to pickup my iPhone from my pocket when walking home late.

Public Transport is amazing. Trains across Sweden, is less so. I got stuck or eleven hours one winter. They seem incredibly amazed that it snows in Winter... each year.

Dining out is also pretty cool. Not as much variety as I'd like, but the level between fine dining and regular dining on the food quality is pretty similar. So if you're ok not having a waiter, you can pay less and still have decent food.

Language skills... nothing to say here. Every Swede can speak and write English. You won't have problems here.