anon4242
Joined 8 years ago
Joined 8 years ago
I'm guessing that their decision to move west had very little to do with the "stifling" unions and more to do with the increased opportunity for a skilled SWE over there. I would say that that increased opportunity has also very little to do with "stifling" unions and more to do with the huge single market that the US is. That huge single market allows companies to grow fast. The EU works hard to be a single market as well but we have language barriers, bigger legal differences and dare I say bigger cultural differences.
Also talking about Scandinavia, as tiny as it is population-wise, we've had a disproportionately large impact on the world in many different areas. Some factors that contribute to this, I believe, are our free education system and the social safety net that unions have played an important part upholding.
Then again maybe we have different tech stacks but mine typically includes: Linux (originally from Finland), ARM (from previously EU member UK), C++ (designed by a Dane) and Python (designed by a Dutch). That's the basis at least then there are other stuff as the need comes by.
As for social stability, I didn't intentionally misinterpret you. The kind of monetary equality that we traditionally have had in Sweden is good for social stability (the one without quotes I was talking about). That has changed during the last couple of decades and with increasing differences in income comes the increasing social problems we see.
OTOH I do agree that Jante can definitely be a negative factor when it comes to innovation.
I wonder how rich Elon Musk would be on that scale? "Wow Elon, you have managed to consume goods for $50000! You are off the chart of richness. $50k, what a rich man!"
The ad said prominently $100000/year which sounds pretty ok for an SWE salary in Sweden, but then if you read on you realized that you needed to start your own company and your company would be paid $100000/year which is quite a big difference. That's my main objection to these types of ads, if you don't already run your own company, chances are low you are familiar with the payroll tax and other costs that comes from running a company which will eat into what you may initially perceive as a good salary, only to end up working more for less.
In my experience as self-employed, it's not that hard to find Swedish companies that pays at least twice the hourly rate and then you can have much longer vacation and still earn more!
Yeah, for programming languages you should probably have been Danish and for operating systems the Finnish have had quite an impact. Both socially stable countries with dare I say pretty strong unions...
To me that sounds like your typical large company. I've had a great time working at small startups but I've found that my job satisfaction pretty much scales with the inverse of company size (within limits, it seems 20-30 employees is the sweet-spot for me).
I am also a Swedish engineer and find that there are plenty of interesting and innovative companies to work for. As a software engineer it has typically been easy to find jobs that offer better compensation packages than what the union requires but I still see a union agreement as a positive thing if the company has it. To me it signals that they care about their employees. I also believe that the strong unions in Sweden have given us the (at least) five weeks of vacation, compared to the two in (the weakly unionized USA) and other quality of life and safety improvements.
> I see the holding back of ambitious, entrepreneurial people in order to preserve “social stability” as increasingly unethical.
This is quite an ignorant view. Social stability is the foundation for society, and society is the foundation for innovation. Who will build what you innovate? Who will buy it? Who will service it? Who will innovate based on your innovation? If you did an honest comparison of the innovative output of socially stable countries with those that are not socially stable you would change your mind.
The law in Sweden dictates that a company must give its employees at least 5 weeks of vacation of which at least four weeks consecutively some time during June, July and August.
This is really insidious as it looks like you'll be earning a lot (but you won't) and it's hard to sue yourself for only giving yourself two weeks of vacation.
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Fortunately we don't have them where I live but they seem like a truly horrible idea.