
Ask HN: Salary in Stockholm? - gonecrazy
Hi,<p>I am a software developer with experience in Python&#x2F;Django&#x2F;MySQL for 3 years. I am currently interviewing with Stockholm area startups. The companies are modern age startups working in the area of mobile and ecommerce. I want to know what is a good salary for 3 years experienced web developer in Stockholm area?
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tegeek
Guide for Stockholm workers.

1\. Average Salary for a software developer with 5 year experience. 32,000 -
38,000 SEK/Month.

2\. You can calculate your take-home money here [1].

3\. Average 2nd hand rental apartment (30-50 sqm) 5,000 - 7000 SEK/Month. Its
easy to find single-person accomodation. [2]

4\. The quality of an average apartment is pleasant. Kitchen & Laundry is
fully functional from day 1 in every apartment around Sweden.

5\. If you've kids, then day-care (preshool) is highly subsidized & generally
good quality. All education is free for everyone from age 7-70

6\. Almost everyone speaks English. You'll not find any difficulty even if you
dont know Swedish.

[1]. [http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/](http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/) (you can
enter kommune as Stockholm & enter your salary and date of birth)

[2]
[http://www.blocket.se/bostad/uthyres/stockholm?sort=&ss=&se=...](http://www.blocket.se/bostad/uthyres/stockholm?sort=&ss=&se=&ros=&roe=&bs=&be=&mre=&q=&q=&q=&is=1&save_search=1&l=0&md=th&f=p&f=c&f=b)

~~~
rohanprabhu
In the link that you provided, it asks if I am a member of the Swedish church?
Can you please shed some light on how that affects taxation?

~~~
estomagordo
If you belong to a religious federation (I do not think this is limited to the
Swedish Church), your membership fee or however men of the cloth prefer to
phrase things, is deducted straight through taxation. It's rather odd.

------
pallinder
Hi guys, as the CTO of a startup in Stockholm let me know if you have any
questions. Incidentally we are also looking for developers (ruby on rails), we
are well funded and about to launch our product in a few days.

Ping me on david@universalavenue.com if you want help/info/apply for a job.

------
NiklasPersson
Hej!

I'm in my fourth year now as a ruby developer. I make 34000 SEK/month.

~~~
smikhanov
Is it before taxes or after?

~~~
pathy
Most likely before taxes, as that is the usual figure used in Sweden.

~~~
gonecrazy
Is the tax same for everyone or are there are ways to get tax relief?

~~~
pathy
By and large it is more or less the same across Stockholm, it may vary a few
percent depending on what municipality you live in.

You of course get some monetary benefits if you have kids and such.

------
JensRantil
If you are an engineer you could join the Sveriges Ingenjörer worker's union
to get access to their salary database. There you can filter/group by
education, age, experience and lots of more.

------
ptaipale
Can't really help you with salary figure negotiation, but make sure the other
things are covered in the process:

1) Check what medical health insurances are be offered by your employer. The
public health care is handling any serious things very well, but there might
be significant queues to get check-ups or treatment for small things, and this
could be mightily annoying. [0]

2) Check how the employer helps you in finding an apartment. There's rent
control in Stockholm, the rental market is dysfunctional, and actual rental
contracts are a thing like property ownership is elsewhere (except that it's
black market). [1] [2]

These would be much more important than the last digits in you gross salary,
out of which a significant part will be taken as taxes and mandatory social
insurances.

Most other things will probably be the same regardless of what your employer
specifically does, so you can study the materials published by the Swedish
government to learn about social issues. [3]

[0] [http://www.thelocal.se/20140117/hospital-queues-tied-to-
insu...](http://www.thelocal.se/20140117/hospital-queues-tied-to-insurance-
trend)

[1]
[http://www.thelocal.se/20130723/49206](http://www.thelocal.se/20130723/49206)

[2]
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873242023045790529...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324202304579052981642050694)

[3] [http://work.sweden.se/living-in-sweden/social-
benefits/](http://work.sweden.se/living-in-sweden/social-benefits/)

------
fapjacks
Since we're on the topic, what would a good salary for a senior software
developer be -- with fifteen years of industry programming experience -- in
Stockholm at a startup? And at a major corporation?

Finally what about CTO or VP/Director of Engineering, with the same amount of
industry experience? I'm trying to get a handle on these things before moving
to Stockholm, as well.

~~~
alkonaut
I'm a senior (12y exp) dev in a "non-silly-money"-industry (i.e. not finance
or SAP-contractor), regular non-startup, in-house dev only. Currently making
around 600-650/y.

You should be looking at maybe 550-750/y as dev, at least for the major
corporations. Startups are always hard to predict, especially if there are
other compensations.

------
TorKlingberg
33-35 kSEK/month before tax if you have a few years experience. There seems to
be a very small span, so 40k would be hard to find.

That range is about 50k USD/year, if any Bay Area people want to have a laugh.

~~~
eliben
It's not about having a laugh, really. This is a serious and interesting topic
to discuss.

To be honest, 50k USD/year strikes me as low for two reasons:

1\. I always assumed Sweden would have quite high taxes (indeed according to
Wikipedia it seems higher than the US).

2\. Stockholm sounds like an expensive place to live in, just because it's a
major European capital and those are rarely cheap.

~~~
alkonaut
The example bracket was a little on the low end, and the USD/SEK rate is quite
high currently so the numbers are a little skewed at the moment.

The taxes are quite high (25-35% income tax for the ranges we are discussing)
and the salaries are relatively low, yes. You don't go working in Sweden to
get rich, period.

It should be noted that the swedish salary includes 5 (mandatory) or 6
(commonly negotiated) weeks of paid vacation, and often comes with no
expectation to work more than 40h/week. This is a cultural difference that
weighs heavily in favour of the lower swedish salary. Still, the swedish tech
salaries are very low compared to the US. There are other reasons: One reason
the salary structure in sweden is quite flat is likely that higher education
is free and grants/subsidies/loans to studens are decent. This means that
getting higher education is very low risk (so in itself doesn't motivate a
large reward).

Simply put: your salary in sweden is what you need to live. You don't save to
afford a long unpaid holiday, you don't save (a lot) for retirement, you don't
save money in case you get sick, you don't save towards you childrens
education and so on and so forth.

------
mdeg
How bad is the language barrier? I know most Swedes speak English (in my
experience, excellent english), but is Swedish the language of business? I
obviously don't speak a word of Swedish.

~~~
pathy
Depends on the sector.

Companies like Spotify are unlikely to require Swedish but something like more
traditional consultancies usually want Swedish.

In the multinationals you can manage without Swedish but it tends to be harder
to get a job if you do not speak Swedish.

------
bertil
Sweden has a tradition of equality that is very strong: salaries are very
closely tight, so most engineer positions would fall within 35-40k Kr/m.

------
estomagordo
When I was interviewing for various dev jobs fresh out of university a couple
of years ago, we were discussing salaries at or just below 30k SEK / month. I
finally ended up accepting a job with a similar salary, but elsewhere.

If I were you, I would not settle for anything less than 35k. Maybe you can
push it to 40k.

------
ThePadawan
To get a better picture of salaries in relation to cost of living, you should
probably also check out [http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/city_result.jsp?country...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/city_result.jsp?country=Sweden&city=Stockholm) .

------
alkonaut
Not sure how startup salaries are related to other salaries, and there may be
other benefits involved there. 40k/mo would be considered "good", and 30k/mo
would be considered "not good".

------
simplegeek
Right now, I am also a software developer (recently worked in Python) trying
to find a job within Sweden. What are good ways to find a job in sweden, any
popular job forums, websites and etc? Kindly enlighten.

~~~
pathy
For startups I linked another poster to: [http://swedishstartupspace.com/job-
board/](http://swedishstartupspace.com/job-board/)

and "try visiting STHLM Tech Meetup's bar mingle after each event:
[http://www.meetup.com/STHLM-Tech-Meetup/](http://www.meetup.com/STHLM-Tech-
Meetup/) "

But also check out Linkedin and monster and such for corporate jobs. I believe
most are up there. Otherwise try to network with people working in the big
corps, that is usually the best way to get in.

~~~
jib
The government job agency is also a good place to check:

[http://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/Globalmeny/Other-
languages....](http://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/Globalmeny/Other-
languages.html)

I think search is just in Swedish, but many jobs are listed in English:

[http://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/4.38a41afd11d99fbdb65800016...](http://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/4.38a41afd11d99fbdb65800016.html?T=developer)

------
edem
You can check the real value of your salary on this site:
[http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/)

------
sidmkp96
Glassdoor might give you a good idea!

------
krat0sprakhar
Kind of OT but can you please share some Stockholm startups hiring Python
programmers? Thanks!

~~~
pathy
Check out [http://swedishstartupspace.com/job-
board/](http://swedishstartupspace.com/job-board/)

They may have some postings that could suit you. If nothing else you can find
some startups worth looking into.

Other than that, try visiting STHLM Tech Meetup's bar mingle after each event:
[http://www.meetup.com/STHLM-Tech-Meetup/](http://www.meetup.com/STHLM-Tech-
Meetup/)

------
dzhiurgis
Slight off-topic to non-Europeans: if you are planning to visit Europe, start
with Stockholm.

~~~
icebraining
Why?

~~~
fapjacks
The most beautiful city, the most beautiful women, the most hilarious sense of
humor.

~~~
alkonaut
Do remember to avoid the winter months (november through februrary), and if
you want to avoid the cold entirely, also skip the pre-winter (sept to oct)
and the end-of-winter (march to may). You should go in spring (june), summer
(july) or fall (august). Joking? Half joking only, sadly :/

~~~
fapjacks
The nine months of very death metal winter are worth those three months of
paradise though. :)

~~~
dagw
Stockholm mostly gets shoegazer winters. Dull, grey, drab, wet and mostly
completely uninteresting.

~~~
dzhiurgis
So like everyday London?

~~~
alkonaut
If you replace the drizzles with blizzards and remove several hours of
daylight in the dark half of the year, all of which is repaid in the bright
half of the year.

------
dagw
Anything between 400000 - 450000 sek per year is reasonable for that level of
experience.

------
kaugesaar
400 000 - 450 000 SEK /y

~~~
raverbashing
And how much you take home? And how much is the average rent?

~~~
bertil
At that range, expect 30% tax; rent is about 8k-10k/m. That and transport
could total to half of your non-tax budget.

~~~
pathy
8-10k would be for a 1 bedroom apartment in most cases.

~~~
bertil
Yes: one room appartement reasonnably close, or a larger place further away --
most of my colleagues there spend the same, some had a longer commute.

