[seivan]

Be ready to pay up for a place to stay in Stockholm, I'm native and I gotta stay in queue in order to get to rent. There is no free market for apartments - at least not for rentals. You can take your chance at the Swedish equivalent of Craigs List or get to know someone. I've given up and decided to buy.

Taxes aren't as high as people complain about, unless you're a freelancer. Small businesses get screwed royally and don't get much support compared to larger ones, but as an employee you will have it decent. You get what you pay for. Compared to say in Singapore, where you pay nada, and get nada. Some people like it.

Crime and religious extremism is in all time high. They do correlate to some degree. I lived in SG for two years, and I felt incredibly safe there (not even locking our door) coming back to Sweden, I feel a but more paranoid about having my laptop in my outside compartment of my bag.

I'm too scared to pickup my iPhone from my pocket when walking home late.

Public Transport is amazing. Trains across Sweden, is less so. I got stuck or eleven hours one winter. They seem incredibly amazed that it snows in Winter... each year.

Dining out is also pretty cool. Not as much variety as I'd like, but the level between fine dining and regular dining on the food quality is pretty similar. So if you're ok not having a waiter, you can pay less and still have decent food.

Language skills... nothing to say here. Every Swede can speak and write English. You won't have problems here.

[vanderZwan]

I think your nativity makes you miss a few problems simply because they never cross your path. For example:

> Language skills... nothing to say here. Every Swede can speak and write English. You won't have problems here.

This is true insofar as that I've been studying Interaction Design in Sweden for one and a half years now (one half year to go) and I have not needed to learn Swedish. However, I've been informed that to get employed in Sweden it's quite vital that you know Swedish. There's plenty of jobs where you don't even really need to know Swedish, but they demand it anyway to give the local people a bigger chance.

To give an example: I know of other students who couldn't get a job delivering newspapers because they didn't speak Swedish because, and I quote "suppose a stranger on the street asks you for directions, how are you going to help them?" which is obviousy part of the job description of newspaper delivery boy.

Can't say how that translates for jobs like UX, although I hear similar stuff from graduates: knowing Swedish is almost necessary if you want to get employed.

I'm quite surprised about your fears at night - I live in Malmö (which has a reputation) and have never felt threatened or in danger at all.

[seivan]

You're partially right here. But for software engineering or general tech/science, English is sufficient. You don't need Swedish. We got a couple of English speakers at my current place of employment and there are no issues here.

But yeah, regarding other types of job, without Swedish, you'll have it tough. My partner speaks fluent Mandarin and English and has a Bachelors degree with honours. Will probably have an incredible tough time finding a job in "Communications". Ugh... Shit degree but you didn't hear that from me.

[mjn]

Copenhagen is a bit more English-friendly in employment from what I gather, even outside tech, so could be an option for people who want to stay in Scandinavia but have trouble finding an English-language job in Sweden. For example the entire Maersk corporation, the largest employer in Denmark, is English-only for corporate business and hiring, except a few jobs that interact with things like the Danish government, local catering, etc. My guess as to why is that Danish tends to be harder than Swedish for foreigners to learn to a level that Danes can understand, so companies don't expect them to.

Some couples straddle Copenhagen–Malmö (35 minutes by train from each other across the strait).

[junki3]

I don't think this is entirely true. I'm a native that have worked in Stockholm for almost 7 years (digital agencies, production companies). At every place I've been we've had at least one person that did not know swedish at all.

[Gojja]

I am a native and agree with you, but the crimes isn't that bad as you describe. No problem to go home late at night if your in the city. If you live in the suburbs (the less clasy ones) I can imagen that the crime rate is higher.

I like Stockholm a lot and think it´s a great oppertunity to come here.

[mjn]

I've found Scandinavians to be extremely paranoid about crime and (from my perspective, at least) massively over-estimating it, maybe because traditionally it was nearly zero.

Coming from the U.S., cities in the Nordic countries are extremely calm and low-crime, so low that you'd need a logarithmic axis to show their crime rates alongside those of major U.S. cities (L.A., Chicago, Atlanta, NYC, etc.). I don't feel at all unsafe walking around the media-hyped "bad" areas of central-ish Copenhagen alone at 3am, or using a laptop on the train/subway at any hour. The housing projects way out in the suburbs may be different, but if you don't live there, you have little reason to ever be there.

[davewasthere]

Religious extremism in Sweden? And I thought it was one of the most secular countries in the world...

At least it's snow on your train tracks. Here in the UK, leaves, rain and yes, even sunshine can delay our trains... :-)

[seivan]

Yup, Sweden wins in atheism, but religious extremism is both breed and imported here. They also tend to generate more off springs than secular ones.