
Living and working in Sweden as engineers - hongchao
http://hongchao.me/living-and-working-in-sweden-as-engineers/
======
bjornedstrom
10 years ago I would strongly recommend my highly educated friends from around
the world to give Sweden a chance, but now I advise more caution, as in "wait
and see". There is definitely inertia in the process, but in my view, born and
lived in Sweden 33 years, Sweden is unfortunately going downhill. I do not
look forward to see what the future brings in 5, 10, or 15 years from now on.
Me and my girlfriend have discussed moving elsewhere because we feel we do not
get what we pay for anymore.

There are many fundamental issues that can only be solved by very unpopular
political decisions, meaning nothing is done because it would be political
suicide in the short/mid-term (the next 4-8 years).

1) While the Swedish state has strong finances, the Swedish communes
(responsible for most of the practical welfare, like healthcare, education,
and so on) are struggling significantly. Taxes likely need to be raised 5
percentage points over the next 10 years just to maintain the current level of
welfare. And that is not factoring in the missing professionals, like teachers
and nurses. These professions are very poorly compensated so a lot of them
quit. On top of the issues with the communes, the Swedish households are among
the most indebted in the world, due to cheap mortgages on houses and a housing
bubble that is just slowly beginning to deflate. The next recession will be
very tough.

2) Sweden has failed with immigrating all low-skilled refugees and economic
migrants from third world countries. I think Sweden should be applauded for
trying to do the humanitarian thing by helping people in need, but what has
happened is that there have been too many low skilled people, too quickly for
them to be absorbed into Sweden. This cohort of immigrants simply do not have
the skills or education to not be an economic burden on the Swedish society.
The costs are enormous. In Sweden the talk is about we've created an "ethnic
lower class" that can only survive on welfare. The problem is a welfare state
only works if a vast majority pitch in to the welfare state. This is a big
contributing factor to many issues in Sweden right now. At the same time, the
big unions and the Social Democratic party is hostile to skilled workers
coming to Sweden because they may compete with the union members, leading to a
lot of skilled engineers and similar being deported because of technicalities.
So Sweden is basically doing the opposite of Canada: we are hostile to people
who can contribute to Swedish society, but have been very welcoming to people
who will never realistically contribute a dime to the Swedish welfare state.

3) There's shortage on housing in the big cities due to regulation and rent-
control. There is absolutely no incentives to build new apartments because the
return of investment is non-existing, and all the zoning regulations and
similar makes it a multi-year project just to get permission to even start
building. What happens is the only new apartment buildings being built are
apartments that are so expensive only people the people who do not have a
problem getting an apartment in the first place (due to being well off) can
buy them. For the Swedish 99%, you either need to get lucky, take significant
loans (which people have done due to almost 0% interest, which will be a
catastrophe when the interests rates increase, which must happen within the
next 5 years) or stand in the state apartment queue for 20-30 years. The only
way to solve this realistically would be for the state to invest heavily in
apartments, basically build away the shortage, and then remove the rent
control. Finland did this. But it was highly unpopular.

If you are in the top tier of your profession and you can basically get a job
in whatever country you please, I'd hang on moving to Sweden right now.

~~~
kungtotte
Are the costs of immigration really that enormous? We pay 15-20 billion
SEK/year in bribes to the craftsmen sector in the form of ROT-avdrag, for
example. How many non-working immigrants do you think that would pay for per
year? There are plenty of immigrants who are capable of performing any number
of jobs that can't get them because they wait forever to get into Swedish
language classes and then they wait forever before receiving permanent
residency here (why would a company hire you if you could be deported
tomorrow?).

Do you know how many truck drivers we're going to need in 5-10 years for
example? We're talking mid-five digit numbers. That's not unskilled labor as
such but it's not a massive insurmountable obstacle either to educate these
people to become truck drivers for example.

~~~
pojzon
> Do you know how many truck drivers we're going to need in 5-10 years for
> example?

As im working in automotive industry i can say to you: "less each year"..
Companies thinking ahead will try to decrease employment of newer drivers and
probably sack off some percent of current ones.

------
vilhelmmoberg
Did not expect such a positive post on Sweden given the negativity floating
around these days. I made the decision to move back from a higher paying
position abroad a few years ago, and most of it due to the points you bring
up. Plus I'm Swedish so I can deal with the weather. In the end, a lower
stress existence is more important to me than maximizing my earnings.

A lot of the complaining you hear from Swedish people is because they haven't
really experienced anything different. They have no idea how comfortable life
is here (still). As a parent, I can barely fathom raising a child in the US
for instance. Even the best companies will give you 4 months paid time off, if
you're one of the lucky few working for FAANG. What the hell do you even do
with a 4 month old after that time's up? They can't fucking even crawl yet.
Not to mention the healthcare situation. The relief to just be able to walk
into _any_ hospital and just give your person number, and everything is just
taken care of. No $20k bill because the hospital is out of your coverage or
whatever.

The main thing worrying me today is like you say, the immigration and crime
situation. The current crime wave is not because of recent immigration but
because of earlier waves. I don't want to find out what happens when 200k
refugees and (mostly) their disillusioned sons turn to crime in about 18
years. Hopefully we can figure this out before then.

~~~
kungtotte
If you read crime statistics reports from places like BRÅ, violent crime is
actually down especially in proportion to the increasing population levels.

 _Edit_ :

Also, to add, during the Syrian refugee wave of 2015/2016, the second largest
group to come here after Syrians were repatriating Swedes. We didn't get 200K
war refugees during the wave on top of our regular immigration. It was 200K
including repatriating Swedes and the normal immigration we see year over
year.

~~~
vilhelmmoberg
Perhaps overall, but murders are up quite a bit:
[https://www.bra.se/statistik/statistik-utifran-
brottstyper/m...](https://www.bra.se/statistik/statistik-utifran-
brottstyper/mord-och-drap.html) Robberies:
[https://www.bra.se/statistik/statistik-utifran-
brottstyper/r...](https://www.bra.se/statistik/statistik-utifran-
brottstyper/ran.html)

I certainly hope you're right though. But anecdotally, I know of enough people
getting robbed with guns and knives that I don't feels as safe as I did 10
years ago.

I pulled the 200k out of thin air. I'm talking more about the sum over the
past few years rather than a specific peak.

------
munfred
> One manifestation of equality in Sweden is that most companies are less
> layered and implement what’s called flat hierarchy. Employees are trusted to
> be involved directly in the decision making process rather than being
> instructed by layers of supervisors. Of course as companies grow larger,
> they can not be kept completely flat forever, but in regular big companies,
> hierachies are in many scenarios too excessive and counter-productive. As
> someone from a very hierachical society like China, I really enjoy working
> in Swedish companies, partly because I am not that interested in climbing up
> the management ladder but more interested in having a better technical
> career. In China, managers enjoy much higher social status than engineers
> because of the power that hierachical organization enables. Many good
> engineers are “forced” to take on a management position even if it turns out
> to be a bad fit and waste of talent. In my opinion, one of the reasons that
> Sweden became an innovation center in the world is because engineers can
> just focus on their technical career without getting too much social
> pressure to become something else.

Interesting observation. If people are promoted to their "level of
incompetence", perhaps not promoting people is indeed a solution...

~~~
hongchao
I guess promoting people to a higher technical position (with equivalent
compensation as managers) is another solution :)

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pkz
As some of the comments show, it is hard to have a meaningful discussion on
taxes without comparing what you get for them (or what you have to pay extra
for in other countries). I guess software developers in most countries belong
to the topmost income stratas and will manage a good life in any taxation
system. For people who don't make as much it is much more complicated I guess.

------
tziki
> Top tier Chinese internet companies now offer higher salary compared to
> their Swedish counterparts

This surprises me since the Glassdoor salaries for a software engineer for
Tencent in Shanghai is about 200k yuan which is about $30k. AFAIK in Stockholm
you could easily net at least twice that.

~~~
hongchao
I don't know the details of the data in glassdoor, but most of my friends in
China in the IT industry (at my age , usually senior devs) make more than my
Swedish colleagues. And I worked in some of the best known companies in
Sweden.

~~~
jxub
Indeed, recently there was an article making rounds here about senior
engineers at the likes of Tencent earning 150-200k$ easily, though subject
often to the infamous 669.

------
chimtim
For anyone not from Scandinavian countries or not used to the low sunlight and
mostly cold weather, the downsides from the long-term side-effects of living
in Sweden such as depression, low vitamin-D state significantly outweighs any
short-term happiness.

~~~
pkz
Most people, even those close to the arctic circle have sufficient vitamin D
levels in Sweden [1].

Regarding depression, it would be great If you could state a source for the
claim that long term residency in Sweden creates depression.

[1]:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4432023/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4432023/)

------
pascalxus
I know sweden is known for it's great work life balance, but I know of a co-
worker who had a very different experience. he joined a start up and had to
work extremely long hours 60-80 hours, people working weekends, much like it's
done in the US. In theorey it's illegal, but what are you going to do? Things
got so bad at that company, he needed to leave. You can't assume all companies
are the same in Sweden.

~~~
dsajames
If he left, why not report?

------
dep_b
Sweden is really expensive. And don’t get me started on the price of a beer in
a bar. Make sure they pay you a lot.

It’s definitely a clean and well organized country with lots of nature. And it
seems pretty great for tech.

But would never move there.

~~~
badpun
> And don’t get me started on the price of a beer in a bar. Make sure they pay
> you a lot.

Also, check out taxes. I was offered a contract position in Sweden recently,
and the total tax burden was around 55%. Thanks, but no thanks.

~~~
geomark
But the Swedes are fine with it, as is the author of the post, because they
feel they get their money's worth. The author went into quite a bit of detail
about he doesn't have to save much for his childrens' education and some other
major expenses since most will be covered by tax-payers.

Assuming of course that the government is fiscally prudent for the many years
until your kids start higher education and you are elderly and need a lot of
medical care. Given how popular it is around the world to run huge deficits
that end up requiring major cuts to services I wouldn't bet my future on it.

~~~
queuq
We are not fine with it.

It's a bit off topic, but all I can see online about Sweden always sounds so
perfect. But in reality it's not. There's a lot of us Swedes that are long
from fine paying these taxes and then see our friends/relatives waiting for
half a year waiting for treatment for cancer.

And if you'd like private healthcare, Sweden taxes you extra for that.

New car? Triple tax first 3 years.

~~~
geomark
I was wondering if there are dissenting opinions. What percentage of Swedes do
you estimate feel the way you do?

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
First of all, being a reader of hn in Sweden probably means your monthly
salary is in the top 10%, which of course colors your view of society.

It also means that you’re taxed higher. While most people pay 31% in commune
tax, the top earners pay an extra 25% adding to the resentment.

I think most people agree that the quality of health care is an issue, but
pretty divided on how to go about things. About 50-50 split.

Fun fact, since the election in September the Riksdag still hasn’t been able
to elect a prime minister due to being to divided on such issues. The only
thing they do agree is to not to collaborate with SD, giving both sides
roughly 40% support for their favorite candidate.

Wikipedia had a nice map of the situation. We hn 10%ers tend to live in the
more densely populated blue areas, again giving a pretty distorted view of
things.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Swedish_general_electio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Swedish_general_election)

~~~
geomark
"I think most people agree that the quality of health care is an issue..."

Really? I thought that good healthcare was one of the major positives of the
high taxes paid in Sweden. That was alluded to in the article and I have seen
positive comments in the past about it. I guess that is due to the 10%ers
being the ones commenting(?). But then I don't understand how there is uneven
distribution of quality healthcare.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
Not uneven in that regard.

One of the issues being debated is the uneven quality between geographic
regions. Not a new issue though, a more contemporary issue the lack of care
givers and long waits that seems to be a problem in general.

If I were to guess a combination of the large age group just retiring and an
attempt to allow more private health care options from a few years back
started a vicious circle of relatively low wages and increasingly stressful
working conditions driving competent people to seek out private employers
instead.

Apparently it’s not uncommon for nurses to leave an employment, only to come
back as contractors for the same job with twice the salary.

If that is the case I’m sure it’s mostly a temporary mess that needs to
stabilize into some new configuration.

But the private options seems to be doing a good job, in general the people
around me seems to be happy with their service at least. But to access those
services you need the typical insurance through your employer, defeating the
entire point of a public health care system to begin with.

So any resentment among the 10% probably stems from fear of not having a
private option for things like cancer treatments if the current mess in the
public system continues.

That said, the public system does an excellent job of all standard physical
care I’ve needed so far. Have had some unlucky encounters with incompetent
people, but can’t blame the system for that.

The psychiatric care looks like a complete failure though. If you have any
anxiety or depression to deal with you’re on your own. The treatment plan is
basically for a GP to administer prescription medicine and sick leave. If you
do manage to be remitted to a specialist their main function is to evaluate to
which degree you’re faking it. (In Sweden your either working or a lazy
freeloader, “arbetslinjen” is very strong)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbetslinjen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbetslinjen)

------
fdim
Denmark is very similar as well, but I despise the tax on cars...

------
13415
I guess someone has to state the obvious here. China has a totalitarian, one
party government that puts a lot of efforts into total surveillance of their
citizens. They are censoring the local intranet and even have "citizen scores"
to create the worst dystopia possible. That alone seems like a good reason to
work somewhere else.

------
theredbox
Probably not. It depends from where you are moving but salaries in sweden are
not that high and progressive taxation kills your chance of living a
comfortable life. On top of that stupidly expensive housing.

~~~
nabla9
> kills your chance of living a comfortable life

You have not been in Sweden.

~~~
hoebaggins
Clearly not.

I'm a swede and I used to live in the US, specifically the bay area, SF. I
moved back to sweden 5 years ago and while I make less than half of what I did
(~150k/year) while working and living in the US, my living standard here in
sweden is so much better in every possible way.

I make roughly the equivalent of $70k/year before taxes here in Sweden (it's
above average) but I pay less half of what I used to pay for a 2 room
apartment in the bay area but instead I get a 300 m2 architectural designed
lake house less than 20 minutes from my office. Buying a house of this size
and good location in the bay area would cost millions of dollars. I paid less
than $400k.

I work remote 3 days a week, I get 8 weeks of paid vacation a year (currently
on vacation and I haven't been at work since 14th of december), universal
healthcare plus free private healthcare (well "free" because I do pay $15 in
fees once every visit) as one of my employee benefits, free lunches plus so
called Rikskortet (can be used to buy meals at restaurants or groceries that
for me covers the whole month), wellness benefits (basically means I get a
free gym membership at whatever gym or physical activity I want), a company
car ('17 Audi A7) where I only have to pay for gas which I rarely need to do
because I live close to work and I work remote more than half the time.

So basically I pay roughly the equivalent of $1500 a month in total (mortage,
utility bills, insurance, food etc) for my current stress free life these days
compared to when I used to live and work in the US where I paid $4000 a month
just in rent alone for a small apartment.

I'd say that I have a quite comfortable life at this point.

~~~
yowlingcat
Very nice. Read the rest of the reply comments -- I'm particularly impressed
with how you used a mutually beneficial arrangement to both you and the
company to boost your effective salary: lower your expenditures and lower
their loss to taxation by offering you perks you otherwise need to use.
Forgive me if this is obvious (not from Sweden so not familiar with the
regulations there), but is there any reason why you can't negotiate even
further down to have them pay for your apartment? Or is it something that
you'd prefer to have independent from your job, or perhaps something else?

~~~
abbe_k
He is most likely taxed for some of these benifits otherwise it would be a
major loop hole.

His gym membership is probably not taxed as the government want to promote
good health, but he has to pay tax for the car, free lunches etc.

