On Madrid vs. Barcelona, the level of english spoken in Madrid is much lower among engineers and I suppose in general. It's also noted that working culture in Madrid is more 'formal' (dress, manners) than Barcelona. An example from Spanish culture is that Madrid refers to catalans as hippies and Catalans to people working in Madrid as 'suits'.
As for economic differences Madrid has more headquarters, especially of companies active across LATAM while Barcelona has manufacturing (automotive, industrial,..), tourism (a lot) and about 75% of the countries' startup scene. cfr. https://novobrief.com/barcelona-madrid-startup-ecosystem/
The tech sector in Barcelona is booming with new investments and new funds entering. VC funding used to be relatively inaccessible but all major EU VC's invest in Spain now and it has two great homegrown funds too. There are many bootstrapped companies and some big tech companies have opened engineering offices here.
There are plenty of english-speaking conferences and meetups going on and it's easy to meet other engineers.
You won't have much problems mixing in as most meetups are in English and engineering teams are often a mix of foreigners and Spaniards. I don't think not speaking spanish will hold you back professionally. In fact, our team is majority British :)
In terms of outdoor activities you can do both are not really comparable since Barcelona is near the sea-side but also a 2-hour train ride away from a ski-resort in Andorra.
In terms of weather both cities get really warm during the summer, but Madrid is located within a group of hills and traps the heat more.
Barcelona on the other side has some shade from the mountain and its proximity to the sea makes it more humid which makes it tolerable except in July/August. Catalans tend to take long holidays in these periods. The winters are milder though, I have been wearing t-shirts in January ever since I got here.
In terms of absolute salary the amounts are lower than London but in terms of quality of living I find you get more value for money.
For startups the salary levels are about:
Juniors get around 25k€
2y+ work experience gets you around 35k€
Senior usually gets you around 50k€
It also depends on your stack as PHP, .net and Java pay less.
However, there are big companies here that have put engineering offices here such as Xing or Typeform that can be negotiated to Berlin levels. They will always try to pay you Spanish levels first but they are happy to pay Berlin levels when pressed.
Their offer range is from 55k€ to 75k€
As for contracting, there is almost none of that here. The ones I know that do it contract remotely for London.
On Madrid vs. Barcelona, the level of english spoken in Madrid is much lower among engineers and I suppose in general. It's also noted that working culture in Madrid is more 'formal' (dress, manners) than Barcelona. An example from Spanish culture is that Madrid refers to catalans as hippies and Catalans to people working in Madrid as 'suits'.
As for economic differences Madrid has more headquarters, especially of companies active across LATAM while Barcelona has manufacturing (automotive, industrial,..), tourism (a lot) and about 75% of the countries' startup scene. cfr. https://novobrief.com/barcelona-madrid-startup-ecosystem/
The tech sector in Barcelona is booming with new investments and new funds entering. VC funding used to be relatively inaccessible but all major EU VC's invest in Spain now and it has two great homegrown funds too. There are many bootstrapped companies and some big tech companies have opened engineering offices here.
There are plenty of english-speaking conferences and meetups going on and it's easy to meet other engineers.
You won't have much problems mixing in as most meetups are in English and engineering teams are often a mix of foreigners and Spaniards. I don't think not speaking spanish will hold you back professionally. In fact, our team is majority British :)
In terms of outdoor activities you can do both are not really comparable since Barcelona is near the sea-side but also a 2-hour train ride away from a ski-resort in Andorra.
In terms of weather both cities get really warm during the summer, but Madrid is located within a group of hills and traps the heat more. Barcelona on the other side has some shade from the mountain and its proximity to the sea makes it more humid which makes it tolerable except in July/August. Catalans tend to take long holidays in these periods. The winters are milder though, I have been wearing t-shirts in January ever since I got here.
In terms of absolute salary the amounts are lower than London but in terms of quality of living I find you get more value for money.
For startups the salary levels are about:
Juniors get around 25k€
2y+ work experience gets you around 35k€
Senior usually gets you around 50k€
It also depends on your stack as PHP, .net and Java pay less.
However, there are big companies here that have put engineering offices here such as Xing or Typeform that can be negotiated to Berlin levels. They will always try to pay you Spanish levels first but they are happy to pay Berlin levels when pressed. Their offer range is from 55k€ to 75k€
As for contracting, there is almost none of that here. The ones I know that do it contract remotely for London.