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Comment by chosenbreed37 | Hacker News Reader

Nice. Have you worked anywhere else in Europe? How does it compare to Berlin? Are the salaries comparable with other major European cities? You say work life balance is great but I hear it can be expensive to live there. What's your experience? Is English widely spoken in offices or do people have to learn Swedish in order to work effectively?

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It is expensive to live there. If you're a programmer, you will live a far more comfortable life living and working in Poland than you would in Sweden, despite how much Swedes tend to look down their nose at the Polish.

I speak from experience.

If you're working a low/zero skill job, you would be far better off in Sweden, although the market is extremely competitive.

Sweden has a major problem with housing, so you can forget renting an apartment in a major city — you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting list to be able to rent anything in the centre of Gothenburg. This isn't hyperbole.

Just about everyone speaks English. Some younger people actually speak English more correctly than a significant proportion of the English population in England. Unsurprisingly, learning Swedish language and culture helps you blend in. It's not a particularly difficult language anyway.

> Sweden has a major problem with housing, so you can forget renting an apartment in a major city — you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting list to be able to rent anything in the centre of Gothenburg. This isn't hyperbole.

You can forget a first hand contract from the municipal housing agencies. Second hand contracts and/or private landlords still work - but watch out for scams.

> Second hand contracts and/or private landlords still work

Barely. There is a black market for rental contracts in Sweden, which is as far as I'm aware unheard of everywhere else in the world.

Renting "i andra hand" (subletting) is extremely difficult. Want to see how bad the market is? Put a fake apartment up for rent on Blocket to test the response rate. The last time I did this, I had over 300 responses in the first half hour.

Subletting is also time-limited to a year, if I remember correctly (though perhaps some housing associations have different rules on this, and perhaps not).

The people downvoting my original comment which is somewhat critical of Sweden is good reflection of the typical Swedish mentality — borta bra men hemma bäst. There's a reason Sweden is called "China of the North".

> you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting list

last I have read it's 10 years in Stockholm, in Åkersberga (less than an hour north of Stockholm) it would be a few years https://www.armadafast.se/boende/bostadsk%C3%B6/k%C3%B6tider

or you can buy for 2M SEK (200,000 Euro) a nice small house in a suburb and pay the mortgage back over 50 years.

Yeah, it's different wait times for different areas. The 18 year figure I gave was for central Gothenburg, like I said.

Where I was living — in Majorna/Kungsladugård — on average 2,400 people applied to rent each apartment. This was back in 2012. This would be worse now, given the refugee/migrant influx.

No, Sweden is my fourth country to live in but I haven't worked in another European country. It can be expensive to live here yes; despite my salary being decent-but-not-lavish I still feel comfortable affording whatever I need to live and "play". In addition to what I consider a decent salary, six paid weeks off (with extra pay for vacation days + public holidays), various company subsidized benefits, nice public infrastructure, healthcare, etc all go to help with that. I guess the other responder's standards may be different, but personally as a programmer my living here feels very comfortable.

Most developers will be making more than €3000 a month after taxes. The problem is usually housing and living costs. Both ranging from €500 to €1500 each, that is €1000 to €3000 total. If you are at the lower end you of course end up fairly cash wealth, at the other not so much. At the same time these days you would still, despite being in one of the more lucrative professions, struggle to acquire a central apartment, or a holiday home, which is largely only accessible to those who are already asset wealthy. Especially not without significant debt.

If you can find your way it isn't bad, but I wouldn't put Sweden above places Switzerland or The Netherlands these day in terms of a good deal. Which I would have five to ten years ago.

Thank you for the insight, but I think you may be intending to reply to someone else :) My experience has fit none of the things you describe (in fact most of the factors you list are quite far off of my own experience in terms of debt, apartment location, and salary), but that's not to say that they're not true for someone else. There definitely is a rental problem in Stockholm right now.

Not sure how I can be far off when I am presenting a range. One that isn't hard to justify for that matter.

I didn't say you were far off in general, I said everything you said happens to not be applicable to my experience (or that of most of my team members), and your comment seemed to be providing information about living in Sweden to someone who already lives in Sweden, which is why I figured you intended to reply to someone else.

You said that the other respondents standard might be different. I am saying that this is the range. What would be the approximate numbers (salary and central apartment), at your company for someone getting hired today, say with a couple of years out of school?

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