Copenhagen has become the world’s most liveable city according to the EIU’s Global Liveability Index 2025 👏

In light of this, we wanted to share a personal experience from one of our own – Aleksandra Bralczyk moved to Copenhagen from Warsaw, Poland in 2018.

This is her story 👇

When I moved to Denmark back in 2018, I didn’t really have any expectations. I just packed my things, booked a flight from Warsaw and went, all by myself. I didn’t have Copenhagen on my travel list nor on my list of countries I would like to move to. I think this is why the city made such an impression on me from the first day and that continues to this very day. I joke that my relationship with Denmark is a bit like a marriage – we made a mutual decision to be together knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. One of these strengths is definitely the working culture here.

Written by Aleksandra Bralczyk 👋

⚒️ So, what’s it like to work in Denmark

Work constitutes 37 hours of our week and whilst we often say that perhaps a job doesn’t matter so much, this is still a lot of our time! Luckily, the work life balance in Denmark is very strong. 

This is not a joke. Danes care deeply about their private life. I was shocked to see that almost none of my colleagues stayed at work past 5pm. In Poland, it tends to be quite normal to work after hours and generally take all your other commitments outside of the work hours. Here, in Denmark, your doctor appointments happen during the day and your colleagues will support you in that regard. 25 days of holiday and good parental leave policies are quite similar to both countries I lived in, but I can definitely see a lot of my international network appreciating how big the paid leave allowance is. There is also a lot of focus on resting – if you are on holiday, you don’t work. If you take a sick day, you are told to switch off.

👌 Trust is the group mind

The whole educational system in Poland focuses a lot on individuality, individual results and praise, and this kind of approach, of course, has its good sides. In contrast, in Denmark, both the schooling system and the workplace put a huge focus on how you cooperate as a part of the team. You will see people being very transparent, sharing knowledge with you and genuinely supporting your growth. As a person who loves sharing ideas with others I could never go back to the individualized way of thinking about my job.

🧑💼 Micromanagement is rare

The same goes for your manager and the leadership of your company. People leaders in Denmark aim at trust, collaboration and partnership. You will receive a lot of autonomy which can sometimes seem surprising! (Do they really trust me to do it, all by myself?!)

Your leads also expect you to come to them with your challenges and feedback, rather than micromanage and check on you every other hour. 

You are the one to track your own results and progress, and they are there to help you and support you when you need them to jump in. Do not be afraid to challenge your lead. They will appreciate your opinion on things and this will not be treated as a lack of respect for their authority, as it might come across in other countries. 

💰 The salaries are not “high” – they are equal

This is a point I really wanted to mention here as it often gets misunderstood. Denmark puts a lot of focus on equality. There is a common perception that salaries here (or in Scandinavia in general) are high. I don’t think that’s the way it works. The salaries here are well regulated and therefore the majority of people – no matter their profession – can afford a sustainable, good quality life. I only have the other perspective of Poland, where the compensation gap between the IT/tech sector compared to other fields is huge. That then leads to inequality which is of course for the benefit of the high earners, but perhaps not so much for the people working in other areas. I would say that all in all, moving to Denmark solely for the financial upgrade or gain does not make much sense – I would recommend it only if you are passionate about the country, culture and a great standard of life based on equality. The taxes are high but thanks to them you can enjoy many great investments, like a robust bicycle infrastructure, and not to mention the free healthcare and free education 🙌

✅ The system just works!

I must admit I was positively surprised (in my individual case) about how well the public healthcare system works. I haven’t had a chance to try this myself, but I can see from my network that there is also a big safety net for job seekers, which makes people go for jobs that actually make them happy. If one is affected by layoffs, there is quite a lot of resources to support them, including their union. The salaries are paid out for a longer period of time and if you have also insured yourself with the unemployment benefit, you can receive support for even longer. The education is free which makes it accessible for most and universities work a lot with employers to ensure employability after graduation. If you are a member of a union you can count on help in regards to, for example, reading your contract before you sign it, brainstorming about your offer or getting tips and tricks on how to plan a successful parental leave.

💗 It can be hard to make friends, but inclusion is important

It is true that it is hard to make friends in Denmark. There are more and more international groups and initiatives to be involved in though. Signing up for classes or activities is always a good idea. The one thing that I always appreciated besides that is that inclusion is very important. There are heaps of initiatives in terms of DEIB in Denmark. The good thing about people overall is the general feeling of safety that for me as a woman moving countries alone was extremely important. I feel safe on my commutes and at social gatherings and that means a lot!

♻️ Sustainability and the environment

Denmark is a global leader in sustainable development. The country invests heavily in renewable energy, green technologies, and environmental initiatives. You can feel it in your day to day. Companies recycle and try to cook green for their employees. There are a lot of ways in which as an employee you can feel like you’re contributing to saving the planet.

If you’re curious about learning more about life in Denmark, here’s a few more resources you can look through 👇

It’s Time for Talent – with Kerstin Edin Stewart

Hi, my name is Kerstin, it’s nice to e-meet you! 👋

I joined Tactile at the end of the summer of 2023 as a Game-UI artist. I work on Lily’s Garden where I create art for new events, updating existing UI, and now game board pieces.

Meet Kerstin 👋
🌱 Before Tactile

I’ve always loved to make art, and – as a lifelong nerd – I’ve always loved video games, so becoming a Game Artist seemed like a perfect fit.

I studied at The Game Assembly (TGA) in Malmö and got an internship at King where I stayed for several years. I’ve worked for various game studios in Barcelona, London, and remotely. 

💜 Joining Tactile

Since I joined, we’ve introduced Scrum, enabling cross-disciplinary collaboration. It’s been a great way to work more agile and gain a deeper understanding of how other departments operate. I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of several teams, which has helped me to connect with more colleagues and to begin mentoring and supporting other artists.

I recently returned from maternity leave as well, and Tactile has been incredibly supportive, both in organizing the leave and accommodating my requests for returning to work. It’s also genuinely a great place for parents, with a strong emphasis on family and a healthy work-life balance.

💪 Having an impact

My team is part of Lily’s Garden Game Board Art department, where we focus on crafting fun and engaging experiences for players interacting with the core gameplay. I’m especially motivated by the creative process of bringing new ideas, such as game pieces and events, through the entire development pipeline, from concept to implementation.

💡 What can you do at Tactile that you can’t do elsewhere?

At Tactile, we embrace an open and collaborative culture where anyone can talk to anyone. Roles are broad by design, allowing us to work across entire pipelines from start to finish. Within the art department, this means that we not only create assets, but also implement them ourselves, which ensures that they function as intended in the game.

📚 The keys to success

If you’re looking to get into the gaming industry, here’s some tips from my own experience.

In general: Embrace experimentation within (and possibly outside) your discipline, and venture beyond your familiar territory occasionally. Don’t hesitate to explore new possibilities. Numerous excellent game development schools exist. I recommend exploring options that include internships at actual game studios. 

For Artists: At TGA I was often told to not have fanart or manga in my portfolio, I consistently did so despite being discouraged. My belief is that passion for a subject enhances the quality of artistic work, making it shine more brightly than work done solely to please others. Your art is ultimately for yourself.

I also want to add – if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend trying to work abroad. For some, it comes naturally; for others, it’s a challenge. Uprooting your life is never easy, but even a short time abroad can be a humbling and deeply rewarding experience.

It’s Time for Talent – with Tamás László

Hi, my name is Tamás, it’s nice to e-meet you! 👋

I joined Tactile at the beginning of September 2024 as a Backend Engineer. I am working on the LiveOps side of our games, which is where we continuously update the games, create tournaments and other in-game events, and it is also where the games communicate with our databases.

Meet Tamás 👋
🌱 Before Tactile

I was a wayward child and was not into computer science at all. After I got my degree in plant protection, I felt like the geek in me wanted to surface, so I started to learn programming. Then Covid hit, so it was the perfect time to bunker in and go all in with the help of a coding bootcamp.

After that I found my footing in the tech workspace. I first worked for a small company and later a bigger, multinational company as a Backend Engineer for web applications. Since I’ve been a gamer for most of my life, when I saw that Tactile is hiring developers with web development experience, I knew that it would be a dream to get the job – even though I had no idea what LiveOps is 😀

💜 Joining Tactile

The first couple of months was a tsunami of information since the domain at Tactile is so specific to the mobile games industry. There were a lot of concepts to learn, even if the actual work that I do is very similar to my previous web development experience. On top of that, I also relocated to Denmark, so there were a lot of things to discover and get familiar with within a short amount of time. Luckily, Tactile supported me a lot in this period.

This is going to be the biggest cliché, but one of the biggest highlights of working at Tactile is definitely the people. On day one, I might have felt like the least qualified person in the room (which can be a good thing in itself!), but everyone on my team was very friendly and welcoming, so I instantly felt like I belonged.

I have been here for eight months now and I have grown a lot, but I also still have some way to go. Having said that, I do truly feel like I am a part of the team and can bring my own ideas to the table. A recurring theme I noticed is that the company is still growing and we have ambitious plans which will shape how we build our services (not to give away any spoilers 🤫). It’s pretty cool to be able to learn together with a bunch of motivated colleagues about a topic none of us are that familiar with (yet).

💪 Having an impact

As I mentioned before, my team maintains the LiveOps part of the games, which is – explained very simply – a tool for our product teams to create events in the games. This tool, written in React.js and Node.js, also enables them to interact with our players via push notifications or support messages, along with a bunch of other things. On the other side of all of this, our games are communicating with the shared backend, which we develop, in order to get all the data that needs to be shared between the different systems and devices.

My favorite part of working with the LiveOps team is that we harbor a very professional attitude towards programming while maintaining a light hearted atmosphere and having loads of good laughs.

To elaborate on what I mean by that, we have weekly meetings to align on coding standards and to help each other with solving issues which we’re currently facing. We hold book clubs to keep ourselves up to date and keep flames of motivation blazing. We believe in going well instead of going fast, and we assign resources to improve the quality of our codebase well ahead of time, not when the walls start to crumble.

🚀 What can you do at Tactile that you can’t do elsewhere

One thing that sets us apart from other companies is definitely the amount of cake we consume on our floor – it probably goes well beyond the industry standard 🤣 I would say that Tactile is a very good place to bring out the best in you. In my experience, we take our profession seriously, but nobody tries to act like they are better than the others, which creates a space where you can safely share your ideas and be a part of the team, not just a cog in the wheel.

💡 The keys to success

I believe that now more than ever, it’s important to have a good understanding of how systems work, instead of what is the syntax of the latest JavaScript framework. I believe that most workplaces look for this at the moment, since anybody can ask any large language model to build the next GTA, but if you don’t know how it should work, you probably wouldn’t get very far.