HN Explorer

Ask HN: Jobs in Spain?

11 points by mlevental ↗ HN
How is the startup scene in Spain? Either Madrid or Barcelona? Salaries? I have an MS (from the US) and about ~5 years of experience in full stack (everything from embedded to backend to web dev to mobile to ML) and I'm wondering what my quality of life would be relative to the US. I speak passable Spanish.

10 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 36.3 ms ] thread
gigatexal
Have you looked at the who’s Hiring for this month?
iraldir
Cannot tell for Spain, but I assume it's similar to neighbouring countries like France. Compared to the united state, it's a much more equal society, which means unlike the US, you won't make 15 times what a barista is making. I'd assume salaries to be around 40, 50k euro at best.

Now that can be enough to make a decent living, have your own flat etc. but it's not, "let's go on holiday to the other side of the world twice a year" sort of money either.

Also there is much less a culture of senior developers, the idea being that to progress in your career you need to stop coding and start being a manager (not true everywhere but the norm)

drstewart
> Compared to the united state, it's a much more equal society, which means unlike the US, you won't make 15 times what a barista is making

Yeah, that's why salaries are so low.

What's Messi make again?

_raul
I live in Spain, outside of those two hubs but always keep an eye on them. Both have healthy dev communities that organize monthly meetups and conferences where it's easy to connect with local startups. Lots of open opportunities, often open to foreign folks, and at least a few companies with very strong technical teams. Salaries aren't near the SF range but should allow you to afford a healthy work/life balance and enjoy your time here.
strzibny
> I'm wondering what my quality of life would be relative to the US

What's your quality of life currently in U.S.?

jlisam13
You can work remotely from Spain :). There are many tech companies that will allow working from EU.
wsgreen
Twilio is hiring Java developers in Madrid
bwb
I love Valencia if you work remote, we just got back from 3 months there and I highly recommend it.
jxub
I recommend the Wayco coworking there, really charming and well-managed space in the city centre.
tronko
There are some startups in Madrid[1], also, apply with LinkedIn and Glassdoor[2] to companies in Spain[3]. Speaking English and somewhat-entendible Spanish you shouldn't have any problem getting and interview. Indeed your English native level can be an asset.

Thus, you should bring to the interviews that have experience working in USA. I think that is pretty valued in Spain.

On the other hand, Madrid seems to have an American expat community, there are some meetups [4][5] and facebook groups, etc.

Don't know about Barcelona.

Good luck!

[1] Take a look at https://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/madrid-spain-start... and https://www.seedtable.com/startups-madrid

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/jobs.htm?suggestCount=0&sugges...

[3] I know you want to work for a startup but Amazon is in Madrid, maybe you are interested in that?

[4] https://www.meetup.com/es-ES/expats-and-americans-madrid/

[5] https://www.internations.org/madrid-expats/americans

EDIT: formatting.