!dev
!rant

Anyone here been to/live in Sweden? I've been thinking about going over at some point, what's it like?

Genuine swede here, ask anything :-)

I've lived in Sweden and go there often as it's sort of our kin country,

@JohanO is it in general a nice place? What's it like as far as tech companies, would it be difficult to find someone hiring developers? Do many people understand English?

If it's anything like Denmark, where I am from, job wise, it should not be difficult to get a tech job!

But the country itself is beautiful, greqt people and if you move, I'll wish you the best of luck!

@ItsDuckyyyy Yes, its a nice country if you like the nature&wildlife. We got LOTS of it and its all free&open for you to use.
You can walk, swim and camp, pick berries & mushrooms everywhere (almost), you dont need any landowners permission.
Its also very uncrowded, only 10million people, 90% of them in the southern parts, so you can really find places where its literally
100miles to the nearest person.

I'm in sweden as well (native swede) working in a fairly multi cultural company (~50% of the devs are from outside sweden. asia, middle east, africa, russia, europe, north and south america is represented, only antarctica and australia lack representation at the moment), We speak mostly english at work, winters in stockholm generally suck (further north you get proper winters with snow rather than ice cold rain and slush)

Taxes are lower than they used to be but they're still pretty high, we get a lot of value for it though and developer salaries are reasonably decent (i don't have to think about money) (I'm really just paying them back for my education and for having access to both of my parents when i was a kid anyway so i guess thats fair (if you didn't get the benefits of growing up here and don't intend to grow old or start a family here the taxes can feel quite unfair though).

Work/Life balance is pretty darn good and the work culture tends to be very informal.

@ItsDuckyyyy Companies are desperately looking for qualified workers, so anyone with a decent degree or experience in s/w-development *will* get a job - no problem.

@ItsDuckyyyy Language is a no-issue, everyone speaks & understands english quite well (if not very well) and also does so happily. We've been taught english since 3rd grade in school and also no american films/tv-shows are dubbed to swedish.

@ItsDuckyyyy Also the work "climate" is very generous. For example, maternity (or paternity if you want)-leave let you stay home with your newborn for more than a year with a decent income guaranteed by the social wellfare system. Also, no-one will get mad at you if you, as a father, wants to stay home with your kid for 6 months. In fact, they would be more upset if you *dont* do it.

Sweden is a great country with nice people and good culture. It's an open society that has come a long way when it comes to democracy, modern secular values, and social benefits. Swedes are very IT savvy and there are plenty of jobs in the IT sector. However, most business is centered around one of the three largest cities, which is bit of a problem when it comes to housing and traffic. It's hard to find an affordable flat or any flat at all, anywhere near Stockholm, not to mention houses that are extremely expensive atm (I think that bubble is going to burst though). Your best chance is if you can find a job that offers housing as part of the deal.

@JohanO Thanks, sounds like my kind of country :) I've recently started to learn the language, all though if most people speak English that makes everything a LOT easier.

@ItsNotMyFault Wow, I never realised that Sweden had that much diversity. I live in Australia, which is also a very diverse country. And damn, those tax rates are high, but I guess you guys pull it off somehow :)

@ItsDuckyyyy Taxes _are_ high but then you dont have to pay for any private social security insurance nor for any schools even including college and universities.

Big bonus if you like winter sports :-)

Everyone understands English, my colleagues who doesn't find that frustrating when trying to learn Swedish because everyone will answer back in English if they notice you can't speak good Swedish. People are generally friendly but keep to themselves. It gets cold and dark during winter.

If you like keeping to yourself, freezing, being constantly mini-depressed because of the darkness but also safe and sound then Sweden is the perfect place

Went for a hike there, the nature is really awesome. Most Swedish understand English, the television is not translated, but only subtitled for example, one reason why they are above average English speakers. Had a decent talk with a grandma in English f.e. .

@ItsDuckyyyy You've probably never heard of my home country, Åland Islands. It's also Swedish-speaking and is located just a few kilometres (yeah, you will have to get used to the metric system ;)) off the Swedish coast. Åland is per definition a country with its own government etc., yet it's not an independent state. It belongs to Finland, but that feels abroad to me. Sweden is per definition abroad, but feels like home. As you can see, national borders don't make much sense in this part of the world :)

@ItsNotMyFault Parse error, expecting a ) before the end of the comment.

;)

@TerriToniAX I'm Australian, already use metric :) and that's one of the things about Europe which I find so nice, being able to just drive around to different countries (can't really do that in Australia)

@zshh Sounds like my perfect place :)

@ItsDuckyyyy Sorry about my ignorance, just assumed you use miles in Australia :) BTW, a Swedish mil is not a mile, but 10 km.

@TerriToniAX Australia isn't that much of a backwards country ;) and oh that's interesting.

Thanks everyone, think I'm going to start saving up for a trip there after I get my PC