I lived in both Madrid and Barcelona for about a year each. They're very different cities.

Madrid:

I'd say this is more of a working city and has less of the mad tourism / party scene. There's a good tech scene present, with plenty of meetups and an increasing number of startups. Things like Google Campus are great spots to meet like-minded people, and there is plenty of work available but you may end up in more of an 'enterprise' style place.

Barcelona:

Very, very popular with tourists. This can be a downside depending on how much you like your peace and quiet. I lived in one of the busiest places for tourism (El Born) so I ended up quite used to the chaos.

With that said, it's an extremely international city and that shows in the amount of startups, co-working spaces, and meetups. It has more of a 'tech' vibe to it. There are some downsides however in that a lot of people there are quite transient, so it can be harder to make meaningful connections.

In terms of language, since you're fluent in English and Spanish then you'll have no problem in either city. Madrid is definitely more Spanish focused, whereas in Barcelona I ended up speaking more English and French than I did Spanish weirdly. It just depends on the crowd you're in.

Happy to discuss more, or put you in touch with people / recommend places if you want. My email is in my bio.

Hi,

I don't think it changed much since last time. Here's what I had to say (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14386943):

Tech salaries in Spain are not higher than for other sectors, as the tech sector is still very small, and most jobs are inside "cost centers" of other companies (banks, telcos, etc.). A typical (good!) staring salary would be 25k for Madrid or 20k for Barcelona. In contrast you'd see 40k in Paris or Berlin for a similar job. It's typical to have 14 monthly payments (with extra payment in July/August and Christmas), so that ends up being around 1200 euros net per month.

Quality of life is great, though, and not so expensive. The Lancet recently [1] put Spain's healthcare as 8th in the world, food is great, the social scene is very open to foreigners, climate is better than in northern europe, etc.

The worse part of your expenses in either Madrid or Barcelona will be renting an apartment, as prices are rising quickly (after the financial crisis, housing plummeted, so construction stopped. But now everyone with some extra cash is buying apartments for renting them, and there's extra pressure to make them a worthwhile investment).

Spain's economy is divided in tiny companies (PYMES), and huge companies. We lack a lot of medium sized companies such as the german mittelstands, and it shows on job mobility and opportunities. Compounding this with a small tech scene, it might be hard to find a job opportunity. But tech is growing quickly, as others have mentioned.

If you are functional in spanish, it shouldn't be a problem, but mind that spaniards are not so used to working with other nationalities, so you will be somewhat "exotic" and you will get a mild joke from time to time. You might find some "inferiority complex", particularly if you are german/french/american, as Spain has traditionally looked abroad for innovation and modernity references (famously pictured by Unamuno and his "Que inventen ellos" quote [2]).

The contracting area is dismal. Most of autonomos are either micropymes or false autonomos, actually working for one huge company, with total dependence and a huge risk, without the normal employee rights and securities. Spain is not accustomed to paying fair prices for contract work. And outside the tech scene, there will be often requests for working for free (typical for design or copy work), or without paying taxes ("cobrar en B").

On the Madrid vs. Barcelona topic I'm of course biased, being from Madrid, but I find that foreigners are initially much more familiar with Barcelona, and they overlook Madrid. Madrid is great! And more objectively: it is bigger, with more opportunities, without language problems (catalan might be an issue from time to time, mostly if you are still learning spanish, but you will also find people from time to time that refuse to speak spanish for political reasons), and with less tourists yet more foreigners (you will not be treated so much as a cash-cow tourist, as some of my friends have suffered a couple of times in Barcelona).

Overall, I'd say you can live very well in Spain, but it is not the place if you seek big career opportunities. Of course all of this is a HUGE simplification, and you can find excellent opportunities in Spain, and shitty opportunities elsewhere. I personally have a lot of french friends working in Madrid with excellent jobs and adamant on staying for the rest of their lives. And all of what I said is improving quickly; Spain got a really big economic push when entering the euro, and although the crisis stuck VERY hard, we are recovering and accelerating a lot!

[1] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67.... [2] (spanish) https://blogs.iadb.org/puntossobrelai/2016/06/06/que-invente....

Refusing to speak spanish is a myth. It's much more likely that you will not ever be able to learn catalan becasue poeple will always switch to spanish the moment they see you are a foreigner. Whether you want to learn spanish or catalan, both or none is up to you. You can live a normal live speaking english only in both places. Have plenty of friends that never got to learn the language beyond some basic pick-up lines and food-related sentences.

The salaries figures, 25K and 20K seem extremely low to me. Truth be told, I've been abroad for the last 6 years, but back then, no way we could hire anyone decent for less than 35K (Barcelona).

I would advise that you are going the earn 20K/25K, do not try to go unless you really want to survive like a student :-) Do not see how are you going to pay the rent with that salary, check prices online.

Both cities are very nice and you will enjoy them both.

Last time I lived there, Barcelona was more start-upy than Madrid, and Madrid more corporate than Barcelona. In any case, they both have plenty of tech, I would not worry about that. You will enjoy your time in either city, if you earn enough of course. Make sure of that first.

According to [1] even Barcelona football (soccer) players were pushed to learn Catalan, even experiencing racism for wanting to speak Spanish.

[1] https://app.football-espana.net/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww....

> Refusing to speak spanish is a myth. It's much more likely that you will not ever be able to learn catalan becasue poeple will always switch to spanish the moment they see you are a foreigner. Whether you want to learn spanish or catalan, both or none is up to you. You can live a normal live speaking english only in both places. Have plenty of friends that never got to learn the language beyond some basic pick-up lines and food-related sentences.

Not in my experience. Some people feel less inclined to speak Spanish and even can feel attacked for asking them to speak Spanish.

> Refusing to speak spanish is a myth

As a general rule, people like to communicate and can't help it, regardless of politics.

Political institutions, on the other hand, might not. So it turns out that, as a foreigner who can speak Spanish in Barcelona, you will find that you'd still need to put the additional effort into learning Catalan in order to take full part in cultural and institutional life.

Whether this is good or bad, is a political question, but it's understandable that some people find it limiting if they have no other relationship with the Catalan language.

What's rent like in those places? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around thinking how devs get by on so little.

They are one data point and imo too low. Six years ago in Barcelona as a senior engineer the bands were 50-80k euros. Now the top end engineers (think team lead) top out around 100k euros.

300 € / room

I used to live and work in Madrid (for a non-tech job), although I have been a programmer for some years now.

While in Madrid I met a number of software engineers/IT professionals. I think Madrid is a decent spot for finding tech work.

Mind you, my family is from Asturias, and the tech scene, I believe, isn't great there. I also don't know how Barcelona is.

If you're looking at Madrid, I think you'll be OK.