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Ask HN: Salary in Stockholm?

59 points| gonecrazy | 11 years ago | reply

Hi,

I am a software developer with experience in Python/Django/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?

87 comments

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[+] tegeek|11 years ago|reply
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/ (you can enter kommune as Stockholm & enter your salary and date of birth)

[2] http://www.blocket.se/bostad/uthyres/stockholm?sort=&ss=&se=...

[+] zmb_|11 years ago|reply
I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty and cost of finding accommodation in Stockholm. It's the number one complaint and problem of my expat (IT) friends/colleagues. Stockholm's population expansion is the fastest in Europe (behind Oslo), but zoning policies etc. have limited the rate of building new housing. Add to that the current low interest rates and you have a lot more demand than supply for housing in the Stockholm area.

It's a great city though and definitely one of the best places in the world to live in.

[+] pathy|11 years ago|reply
>3. Average 2nd hand rental apartment (30-50 sqm) 5,000 - 7000 SEK/Month. Its easy to find single-person accomodation. [2]

Unless you live far out that sounds low for a 2nd hand contract. Anywhere close to the city it is more like 10k for 30 sqm.

[+] troels|11 years ago|reply
Where does the quoted salary range come from? It seems a bit low to me.
[+] rohanprabhu|11 years ago|reply
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?
[+] mchaver|11 years ago|reply
Is that salary you quoted before or after taxes?
[+] pallinder|11 years ago|reply
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 [email protected] if you want help/info/apply for a job.

[+] NiklasPersson|11 years ago|reply
Hej!

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

[+] piqufoh|11 years ago|reply
== $4,207.89 / month

(to save anyone the google)

[+] smikhanov|11 years ago|reply
Is it before taxes or after?
[+] JensRantil|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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...

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

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

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

[+] fapjacks|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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.

[+] AArg|11 years ago|reply
I live in argentina and you are lucky if you make more than 12k USD/year in software industry here. So sad :(
[+] drstewart|11 years ago|reply
It's unfortunate salaries are so low, if they were even in the ballpark of Bay Area salaries I would have already moved. I had a great offer in many ways in Stockholm, but it's hard to justify an $80k+ pay cut.
[+] mdeg|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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.

[+] alkonaut|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] sidmkp96|11 years ago|reply
Glassdoor might give you a good idea!
[+] dzhiurgis|11 years ago|reply
Slight off-topic to non-Europeans: if you are planning to visit Europe, start with Stockholm.
[+] dagw|11 years ago|reply
Anything between 400000 - 450000 sek per year is reasonable for that level of experience.
[+] kaugesaar|11 years ago|reply
400 000 - 450 000 SEK /y
[+] raverbashing|11 years ago|reply
And how much you take home? And how much is the average rent?