Do you remember the concept of Uberization of recruitment? In the previous post we discussed this aspect and today we will put the focus on a more universal aspect. Have you ever wondered why IT salaries in Barcelona are higher than in the rest of the Spanish state?
At the beginning of 2019, I conducted a data-based investigation on the IT landscape in Spain, and the final result corroborated some trends that we had observed through informal conversations in the ICT sector, without much data on the matter.
Among this data was the difference in salary for IT jobs between Madrid and Barcelona, where the data told us that higher wages were usually found in Barcelona:
Jobs with the highest demand and average salaries - Tech Cities 2018
Montse Gil
We're talking about data that confirms salary trends, and I like to interpret this data with people who have experienced it first-hand.
For this reason, the person I'm speaking with today is someone who has been part of Barcelona's ICT scene for many years; Montse Gil
Montse currently works at Escapada Rural and, in her own words, this is her job profile:
>>Escuchar audio<<
Technical hirings with nuances of difficulty
Let's start by highlighting the fact that finding IT professionals in Barcelona is an arduous task.
Montse tells us about it by comparing 3 types of selection processes for very different positions that, even though they have a technological core, differ in their degree of complexity:
>>Escuchar audio<<
Hiring unicorns and finding a solution
Montse talks to me about a specific case, from which I think a lot can be learned from the decision they finally made.
She tells me about how they were looking for a UX profile that covered a very broad spectrum of knowledge (from end to end) that she calls "stretched gum” and that I identify with the "unicorn” concept, which you will have heard a lot about.
This search and the difficulty it entailed reached a point when they considered something as wise as:
“[…] wait a minute, we're the ones who are wrong […]”
Right after this moment, they found the solution they were looking for, which you can listen to in the following audio:
>>Escuchar audio<<
The Employer Branding of Barcelona
Speaking with Montse about other constraints when it comes to building the panorama in Barcelona, she talked to me about something I find very interesting and that I hadn't thought about before, which is the city and the environment itself as a professional destination.
She offered me this new perspective from her experience of having worked within an international group, with colleagues from many other nationalities and for whom the beach, mountains, climate and tourism in Barcelona was a component that they took into account when deciding to make the move.
>>Escuchar audio<<
This whole conversation about the attractiveness of the city of Barcelona for people of other nationalities is mixed with the number of international companies
that have settled down here in recent years, and that I believe needs to be taken further into account.
Barcelona and its international companies
Some time ago, I collected some data regarding the growth of ICT workers that was taking place in Barcelona, and at the time the data was the following:
“According to the Generalitat, in Catalonia the ICT sector employs 24,600 workers through 12,800 companies and all this in a record time, seeing how in 2014 there were only 6,000 employees in the sector, meaning the number of technical personnel has multiplied by 4 in just 3 years.”
This data is only from 5 years ago, and now we're talking about a territory with companies like: Facebook, Amazon, King, Satellogic, Adevinta, …
According to the ‘Startup Ecosystem Overview’ report (MWCapital), Barcelona is already positioned as the 3rd city with the highest number of technology companies in Europe, only to be surpassed by London and Berlin.
Changing landscape
This is an evolution that people like Montse have experienced in first person, which she summarises and focuses on two essential axes during these recent years:
The specialisation of job positions; “going from people who knew a bit about the internet and who were kind of computer geeks” to some very highly specialised positions”.
The internationalisation of the market; seeing how many companies on the international scene have entered the market.
Weapons for small businesses
Montse talks to me about two factors that are currently decisive when it comes to hiring programmers in Barcelona for smaller companies, which are:
1.- The challenge that the job can offer a person; referring to the work to be done in and of itself and that often has to do with the maintenance of older platforms versus the creation of new developments and/or refactorings that are often viewed as "more challenging”.
2.- The culture of caring for people; for Montse, it is very important for a small company to be attractive in terms of transparency, conciliation and management that encourages employee self-management.
These factors are considered crucial for a small company where, in many cases, you can't and don't want to enter a salary competition.
>>Escuchar audio<<
Culture of caring and how it attracts characters and attitudes
Moreover, in the case of culture, I would like you to listen to the huge impact it has on business, beyond just the hiring of people, spoken in Montse's own words:
>>Escuchar audio<<
A small secret
I have experienced the market more from Madrid, but my relationship with Barcelona and specifically with Montse goes back to a time when we both teleworked together, where every 15 days I would go to the city to be with my team.
At that time, I was able to perceive much of what was pointed out by her in this interview, those differences in internationalisation between one city and another, in the different nationalities of colleagues, that evolution of jobs and, above all, that culture of caring for people, which has been around for a long time.
We have experienced many stories along the way, and in relation to other people who are emerging and finding themselves once again on changing paths every so often; regardless of whether it's in Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam or wherever; our sector is a system of relationships that stands the test of time and that is nourished by people like us who are walking along a crossroads.
It is a small yet large ecosystem of relationships that has no borders; it has been a pleasure to talk with you again Montse, thank you for everything you have contributed.
