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Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

helsinkibusinesshub.fi

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Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#361

Post by dharma1 »

cactus2093 wrote: post #231
deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

Sounds like you’re in tech, what range of salary have you seen for software engineers? I know London, Paris, a lot of expensive European cities pay a small fraction of what the Bay Area does so a lot of engineers would have to compromise quite a bit on disposable income and lifestyle.

I would try to keep your current Bay Area job and continue working remotely for the same company from Helsinki. Best of both worlds

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#362

Post by speedgoose »

Devils-Avocado wrote: post #27
brryant wrote: post #2

This is honestly a great way for tech entrepreneurs to experience Nordic living. The fact is Finland has one of the most startup friendly environments around: — top schools (Aalto U. produces incredibly talented engineers) — startup friendly ecosystem (cheap rents, cheap internet) — Finnish work culture (direct, no nonsense, hard working but balanced) — fantastic food and beverage scene in downtown Helsinki My wife i…

Also: 24% VAT (sales tax) 18% employer payroll taxes 10% employee payroll taxes 20-30% typical income tax Take your American disposable income and cut it in half. Still worth it for 'free' education and 'free' healthcare? Also a lot of cold and darkness.

Yes, definitely.

If you only think about you and your family, in this system you can also be sure that your children will have access to free education and free health care, and your grandchildren too.

It's also nice to live in a society where everyone has access to free education and free healthcare. The inequalities are not as big and it benefits you indirectly.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#363

Post by antris »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #314
Maakuth wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers are required to provide occupational healthcare, which at least in my experience - of IT workplaces - provides quick access to care, dental or otherwise. Actually this is one of the pain points of the healthcare system here, the long wait times for patients without occupational healthcare.

It’s worth noting that the package provided by your employer varies hugely. Mine is flexible right now so if I’m sick I can see someone. Some are super strict about it only being workplace related.

> Some are super strict about it only being workplace related

AFAIK, that's illegal. Your employer might not cover everything, but your employer cannot dictate what service you can use. I've seen this before where my employer said "we have health care, but you are not allowed to use it". I later on learned that that's totally illegal, they just wanted to cut costs by hoping that people would comply.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#364

Post by doikor »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #297
deanclatworthy wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for those in the web tech industry, but salaries go from 4-6k euros. Take-home pay would be in the region of 2.5-4.5k most likely. I've seen a lot of whining about the high taxes here, but honestly this is not a European way of thinking. You are safe here. You have a safety net if things don't go right in your work or health. Taxes are also super simple. You tell the tax office your predicted income,…

4-6k seems high even for Helsinki. For starting position you can expect 2-3k, then as you build towards seniority you can get to 4-5k range, but you can expect to work for 5-10 years before you get to that 5k/mo (before taxes). Now all kind of exceptions will come out the wood works telling me how they are "easily" making 10k/mo by doing something and working for someone who they won't admit. Yes even I know someone…

Starting salary is actually pretty much exactly 3k in Helsinki. In most companies as a pure software engineer you can expect the salary to top out somewhere between 5 to 6k. If you are willing to take on management roles you can go higher easily (especially in older/more traditional companies that don't believe in paying engineers that much).

If you are in a "high scaling" tech company expect the salaries to be higher as Helsinki basically competes with places like Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc in salaries for the skilled people to build that stuff. Still no Silicon Valley but really good if you factor in the cost of living/"free" services.

Another thing to add to the salary is that you are truly expected to only work 7.5h per day (8h minus a 30min lunch break). If you work more you will get paid for those hours. So if in SV in reality you end up working 60h work weeks you should be paid roughly 50% more when compared to the 37.5h work week here just from the hours alone. If you work on weekends then even more as those get extra multipliers in Finland.

Also things like being on the 24/7 on call rotation that I see as being advertised as "part of the job" in a lot of job adverts are actually paid time here. So basically you end being paid for the hours outside normal work hours at 50% of your salary converted to hourly salary.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#365

Post by Pandabob »

meekrohprocess wrote: post #302
Pandabob wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While most salaries fall into the aforementioned ranged, I'd point out that software companies in Finland with "scalable" business models, do have pay more inline with big tech companies. Obviously there aren't many of these jobs but I'd point to gaming companies like Supercell and Seriously.

There are certainly exceptions, and I have a lot of respect for successful EU tech companies! But I really dislike rat-races, so I tend to avoid areas with loads of competition. The US tech market is like a bottomless money pool, and it's hard to justify putting a lot of effort into moving somewhere that would tie you to a few well-paying employers. I like working on and learning about things that benefit the people…

Can't argue with this. We've got a small market and few companies with internet based business models.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#366

Post by _2d30 »

h0l0cube wrote: post #310
_2d30 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This interpretation of this "obligation" is true of any "obligation". "Obligations" are inherently a social capital forcing function conception. They can always be violated so this point is pretty moot.

You're getting caught on semantics rather than understanding my argument. See my edit on the original comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25004980

Your edit is just as useless. Leaving NATO is not an inconsequential action nor do I see abandoning "The West" to be something likely to be well received by US voters.

No one got caught up in meaningless semantics. It's just that your point doesn't carry much weight.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#367

Post by dharma1 »

legohead wrote: post #263
deanc wrote: post #190

Overall my experience in Helsinki has been hugely positive. I’ve been here now over a decade and have settled with work and family life. Work life balance is great, there’s a beautiful outdoors to enjoy all year, and the people are warm and kind, if not difficult to start with. All that said, there’s a lot of bullshit and hot air here in this thread: - public healthcare is great until you have something difficult to…

Can you pay for private dentists, or similar, if you need more immediate service? And is the wait similar for major things like cancer, brain tutor, or heart surgery?

Yes, you can pay for a private dentist, get seen very fast, and you even get that part subsidised by the government if you are a resident. It's quite cheap, and the dentists are excellent. I'm from Helsinki but have been living in London for the past 15 years - I still go back to Helsinki for dental work just because I trust the dentists more.

Cancer etc - yes, you get fast tracked on the public health care system.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#368

Post by h0l0cube »

labster wrote: post #350
h0l0cube wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Techinically , you are right, but as with the treaty with Iran[0], or the Paris Agreement[1], etc. the US can leave. The US can basically do what it wants, and the political consequences are relatively minor. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#Withdrawal_fro...

The political consequences of the US withdrawing from NATO would be unimaginably large, not relatively minor. It would be like the partition of Rome, fundamentally reshaping the world order.

The US is the wealthiest nation by far and has leverage over any other developed nation you can name.

It has to be asked, what is being bought by the US participating in NATO? What are they getting in return? And is that in the interest of the majority of US citizens or not?

There seems to be a push from the US and the UK towards returning to isolationism. There are pros and cons to further isolation, which ought to be considered and balanced in the interest of the people - assuming democracy is the overriding principle.

That said, what consequences do you think would be borne by the US if they pulled out of NATO? And do you think there might be some benefits to counter that?

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#369

Post by szatkus »

cbmuser wrote: post #351
deanclatworthy wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has lived in this environment for this long, it doesn't work that way. This is not a language that shares any traits with English. It is hard to get going, and the vocabulary takes a considerable amount of time. You can't switch to Finnish at work, as you simply would not be able to get by, and you can't do it at home as it changes the dynamics of your relationship. This is not an excuse, it's reality.

I don’t buy that. Japanese is completely different, too, but I learned most of it while in Japan where I was forced to speak it. Finish kids don’t need ten years to learn the language either, do they?

If anything Finnish is much easier than Japanese for Europeans.

Re: Helsinki Relocation Package: City as a Service

#370

Post by refurb »

ed wrote: post #338
bedobi wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but OP is right and you are wrong. Health care in Scandinavia is great in many ways and not so great in others. People do suffer, even die, waiting in line for public treatment, and health care lawsuits aren't really a thing.

You may want to talk to folks who actually use national healthcare services. By and large they are happy with it. Instead you’re just repeating industry FUD https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada

Sure, people may be satisfied with their system, but that's all they know. And that goes both ways, for Americans and others.

As someone who has experience both the US system and a universal system, there are things you get in the US system (if you have insurance) that you won't get in other systems.

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