[woahitsraj]

Left the states a few years ago. After a 2 years stint in Toronto at a startup I now work for a Swedish development agency in Gothenburg.

6 weeks of paid vacation, great public transit, and affordable housing all mean I'm never going back to the states. If your considering moving to Europe, I'd highly recommend it. Salary isn't everything in life.

Happy to answer any questions

[danilocesar]

What's so bad about Toronto? Ontario looks like a nice region to live.

[woahitsraj]

It's all right but the housing market is absolutely insane. I was paying 1600 CAD for a 50 sq ft apartment.

The public transportation was also awful. TTC is a joke. I also wasn't a big fan of the culture of the city. Lots of finance people and I also feel a lot of the hyper competitive status focused culture of the states has seeped in to Toronto.

I also have much more flexibility and vacation with my current job. 6 weeks vs 4 plus I can work remotely now though this is more of a function of the company I work for

[Gpetrium]

I don't think anything is bad with Toronto per say (maybe housing prices), he explicitly said states, maybe life just pulled him to the EU

[woahitsraj]

Pretty much this but there are some gripes I have with Toronto as I posted above

[digianarchist]

3 weeks vacation is the norm here.

Average rent is $2100. Average house price $750,000.

[Pandabob]

How's agency life compared to working at a startup? I'm currently at an agency in Stockholm and I'm thinking if I should go try out what's it like on the other side.

[woahitsraj]

It's a very different pace of work. I really loved working at a startup but there were some months where I was working 60-70 hours a week to get something shipped because runway was short. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun but I prefer agency life. Lots of variety of projects, reasonable time budgets, generous time off, and I always get to work on pretty cutting edge technologies.

[oblio]

Affordable housing? I heard that Stockholm is super expensive relative to local salaries.

[woahitsraj]

I live in Göteborg but there are other things than relative salary that make Sweden attractive. I think it depends a lot on what you want out of life. The US or Canada might be good for some people. If you want to maximize your salary relative to cost of living, Austin or Seattle may be a good choice.