Do not take these as a recommendation on where to settle.
You will be wildly baffled.
Social culture is more important than social welfare.
EDIT : For those that claim X people speak English just fine, I recommend a new metric "Number of English speaking tables at pubs in their top cities"
Maybe related to the local culture, AFAICT Swedes in general avoid conflict and whenever I questioned something at a meeting I was acknowledged and then the issue was quietly dismissed, no one wants to change anything, review processes or engage in a discussion to make things better, people will hear you, not argue back, and quietly move on, I much preferred environments where people were respectful but ultimately entered open discussions where it feels like you can learn more from each other.
Similarly, everyone in Sweden is very nice, up to a point where it's way too impolite not to be nice, everyone was very nice to me and I felt very welcomed and integrated and then I saw everyone was playing corporate chess in the background and complaining about me to my managers for reasons I'm yet to comprehend.
Ultimately I left Sweden because I didn't find it the right fit for me for several reasons combined, climate is of course not the best, salaries are not high compared to the cost of living you get in other European cities. The fact that I didn't enjoy my working environment there was just extra.
I only had one short lived working experience in the city so it might have been an odd case.
Exactly! and with safety net they have, they're able to afford to play political games without the risk of losing their job. I put years of effort into building products only to be discredited because I didn't pay attention on politics & just focused on building stuff.
Then there is also favoritism. They tend to stick with each other. They sometimes openly hire their past-colleagues/friends.
reference; I worked at a couple corporations here, some of the biggest ones.
I can write pages about it, but I will intentionally cut it short here. Because a lot of the experiences I had are very emotional & vulnerable to me. I wouldn't feel comfortable some random commenter coming and justifying it in all different angles.
There is a HUGE segregation problem in Sweden. Instead of sharing personal anecdotes, I would like to give you an idea how you can observe it. Look around within your Swedish circles, how many expats/immigrants do you have? how many English-speaking ones? Go to a park or a pub, and look around; how many English-speaking tables do you see? Do you observe some ethnical barrier between the tables?
I can barely say I have Swedish friends. I throw parties all the time, I get people from all different nationalities; spanish, italian, french, german. Yet, living in Sweden, I always ask myself "where are the Swedes?". We are not invited to their parties, but they're not even showing up to nomad/expat communities.
Swedish acquaintances (friends) I have; I only see them 2-3 times a year. In the time, I have been here for 7 years, number of times I have been invited to Swedish homes is less than 5.
I indirectly heard; one friend excluded me from a dinner that was to introduce me to their cousin who is also nerdy. Because his girlfriend was uncomfortable with speaking English.
Again, I repeat, these are only some examples. Because once you get anecdotal, people tend to get stuck on specifics and act pedantic.
What’s left is a focus on economic management, politicians whose main job is to maintain the status quo, and a low appetite for reform. Which I guess is fine for everyone if the money keeps rolling in, but is dispiriting for anyone that wants to try their hand at making something new.
I’m happy to be pointed to links on how Nordics are hothouses for innovation (as opposed to just applying a known business model to a new market), as I would love to have the wrong end of the stick on this!
The Nordic countries are known for their Social Democracy where reforms are everything. That of course isn't true anymore, but there isn't much saying that conformity inhibits progress. In most cases you have to get to some good place before you can go somewhere else.
That said, today Sweden is mostly a terrible place for any kind of knowledge work since the housing market is so screwed.
Seems like these comments aren't going through though so... guess that was a waste much like Hacker News.
The grass is always greener.