The Hexamodal Distribution of Tech Salaries in Spain (v2)
From Trimodal to Hexamodal: The New Reality of Tech Salaries in Spain
A few months ago I published an article explaining that tech salaries in Spain are distributed across three broad groups. After analyzing the data more deeply, I've found there are actually six. Understanding which one you're in — and how to move between them — could change your career.
Imagine two people who studied the same thing, learned the same languages, have the same number of years of experience, and whose CVs, placed side by side, are practically interchangeable. Now imagine one of them earns €35,000 a year and the other earns €135,000.
Unfair? Yes. Surprising? It shouldn't be anymore.
This gap is not an anomaly, nor is it the result of a lucky break. It's the outcome of understanding how the salary market works: your salary in tech doesn't depend (only) on what you know. It depends, above all, on where you work.
In October I published an article on the trimodal nature of tech salaries in Spain, inspired by Gergely Orosz's work at The Pragmatic Engineer. The idea was simple — adapting his study to the Spanish market: there isn't a single salary distribution. There are three parallel worlds (three tiers of companies) that compete for talent in completely different markets and pay accordingly.
The article landed well. A lot of people shared it. But since then I've been wrestling with something that didn't quite fit: How can a small consultancy and a company like CaixaBank Tech coexist in the same tier? Or should Factorial and GitHub really be in the same group? In Spain, the domestic and international markets collide. And that makes the classification too broad.
The trimodal model is useful, but it falls a bit short. Reality has more nuance. So I went back to it, fed in more data, and presented the updated version at T3chFest 26. A better distribution and a new chart. Here is version 2: the hexamodal distribution.
Six tiers. Six distinct labor markets within the same sector. With salary ranges running from €25,000 to €200,000+. And with completely different rules of the game in each one.
If you read the previous article, this is the natural continuation. If you didn't, no problem — this one works on its own. But I'll leave the link here, because in the original I explain many more things. https://www.getmanfred.com/en/blog/the-trimodal-nature-of-tech-salaries-in-spain
Let's get into it.
The Core Problem: Same Role, Completely Different Salaries
Before we talk about tiers, charts, and distributions, I need you to take away one very concrete idea.
Open LinkedIn right now. Search "Backend Engineer Spain." Filter by active offers. What you'll see is something like this:
- Backend Engineer — Nyxell: up to €42K
- Backend Engineer — MercadonaTech: €50–70K
- Backend Engineer — Swiss Re: €60–100K
- Backend Engineer — RevenueCat: $227K
I'm not including links because they'll expire over time and turn into broken URLs.
Four job listings. Same title. Same technical requirements on paper. A difference of more than €180,000 between the first and the last.
Is the RevenueCat person five times a better developer than the one at Nyxell? Not necessarily. Do they work five times as many hours? No. So what's going on?
What's happening is that these four companies are not competing in the same market. They don't have the same business model, the same access to capital, the same compensation philosophy, or the same ideal candidate profile — even if the job title is identical. They are four different worlds that, from the outside, look like the same one.
And here is the first mental mistake almost everyone makes: assuming your role pays the same everywhere.
It doesn't. Not even close.
The Myth of "What a Senior Is Worth"
When someone has been coding for five or six years and starts looking for a new job, they usually run the same mental calculation: "I'm a senior and Manfred's Salary Guide says I should be earning X." If they don't know our salary guide, that number comes from what a friend earns, from something they saw in a Twitter thread, from some salary survey, or simply from what feels fair.
The problem is that that number doesn't exist in the abstract. There is no single market price for a senior backend developer in Spain. There are several salaries, depending on the type of company you're looking at. And the difference between them isn't 10 or 20 percent. It's 300 or 400 percent.
Your Salary Doesn't Depend (Only) on Your Technical Skills
This is the hardest thing to accept, and I get it. For years we've heard the message that if you study, train, get certifications, and learn the framework of the moment, the market will reward you. And it's true — up to a point.
Your technical skills determine which companies you can access. But once you're in, it's the company that sets the rules of the salary game: its financial capacity, its compensation culture, whether it has international investment, whether its product scales globally or serves the local market.
Two people with exactly the same technical level can be earning radically different salaries simply because one chose — or landed, often without enough information — at a different type of company.
And that, more than anything else, is what explains why your colleague earns €135K and you earn €35K.
From Trimodal to Hexamodal: Why We Needed More Granularity
If you read the previous article, you already know the story. If not, here's the summary: tech salaries in Spain don't form a normal bell curve where everyone clusters around a mean. What we observe in the data is something stranger: three distinct peaks, three separate concentrations of salaries, corresponding to three very different types of companies.
We called it a trimodal distribution, borrowing the concept from Gergely Orosz, and it worked well as an initial mental framework. Tier 1 (traditional companies and consultancies), Tier 2 (national startups and scaleups), and Tier 3 (Big Tech and global scaleups). Three worlds, three salary ranges, three distinct engineering cultures.
The problem came when we started digging a little deeper.
Where the Trimodal Model Failed
Within the original Tier 1, we lumped a small 20-person consultancy in Valladolid together with Accenture. They have nothing in common. One pays median salaries of €20–25K. The other can reach €50–55K for senior profiles. They are different markets within the same tier.
The same happened at the top. Glovo and GitHub are not the same type of company, even though both have digital products. One is a national scaleup headquartered in Barcelona with funding cycles in euros. The other is a global company owned by Microsoft that hires remotely and pays in dollars with RSUs included. Putting them in the same tier was too big a simplification.
And then there were the edge cases that didn't fit anywhere. Where do you put Freepik? Or Bending Spoons? Or RevenueCat? Companies with global products, distributed teams, salaries well above the national average — but not exactly Big Tech.
The trimodal model described the general shape of the market well, but lost too much information at the extremes and in the middle.
The Solution: Split Into Six
After thinking it through, cross-referencing data, and contrasting it with what we see at Manfred week after week, we concluded that the Spanish market makes more sense described with six tiers, not three.
The hexamodal distribution aims to help better understand the market. Each division reflects a real, observable difference in salaries, culture, hiring processes, and product type. These are groups that behave differently in the market.
Visually, if before we had this:
Now we have this:
And most importantly: the distance between the first peak and the last has grown. The market has polarized. Tier 6 companies pay increasingly more to retain global talent. Tier 1 companies remain anchored to salary structures that have barely moved in decades. The gap keeps widening.
Why It Matters to Understand This Now
Because most career decisions are made with incomplete or downright incorrect information. People compare their salary with a friend's without realizing that friend works in a completely different tier. Or they accept an offer without understanding that the salary ceiling of that company is just two pay raises away. Or they've spent years frustrated because "they won't give me a raise" without realizing the problem isn't their specific company — it's the type of company they're in.
The hexamodal model isn't a magic formula. But it is a map. And navigating with a map is always better than navigating blind.
Let's look at what's at each stop.
The Six Tiers, One by One
Before diving in, a warning: these tiers are a tool, not an absolute truth. The borders between them are blurry. Some companies straddle two levels. There are outliers in every direction. And the salary data is indicative, based on what we see at Manfred, industry surveys, and public job listings. Much of the data is not official company figures — we collect it from what employees report on platforms like Glassdoor or Levels.fyi.
With that said, here we go.
Tier 1 — Small Companies and National Consultancies
Examples: Keepler Data Tech, AracnoSoft, Everis (NTT Data), atSistemas (Knowmad Mood)
Tier 1 comprises the smallest companies in the Spanish tech ecosystem: local consultancies, development agencies, digital SMEs, and small-scale outsourcing firms (even if they've been acquired or rebranded). They are, in many cases, where a lot of people get their first job in the sector.
The business model is typically services-based: they build projects for third parties, invoice by the hour or by project, and their margin depends on keeping personnel costs under control. That has a direct and very concrete consequence for salaries.
Some, despite having grown in size and revenue, still have very tight salaries. That's why they remain in this tier.
Hiring processes are simple — sometimes just one interview. The technology they use can vary, though it isn't always the most modern. Career development plans, when they exist, tend to be vague.
Salary data (senior profile):
- Median: ~€30,000
- 75th percentile: ~€40,000
- 90th percentile: ~€45,000
What you can expect here is stability, a reasonable work pace, and low delivery pressure. What you can't expect is equity, significant bonuses, or salaries that scale much over the years.
Tier 2 — Large Consultancies and Traditional Enterprises
Examples: Accenture, Sngular, BBVA, Telefónica, Iberia
This is where the headcount starts to get larger. Large consultancies (Accenture, Capgemini, Indra) and big non-digital corporations with powerful IT departments (banking, telecoms, utilities, logistics) make up this second group.
The difference from Tier 1 is mainly one of scale and financial muscle. A company like BBVA can pay significantly more than a small consultancy, has more structured internal development programs, and in some cases is starting to adopt more modern engineering practices.
That said, these are still companies where technology supports the business rather than being the business itself. That sets the ceiling.
Hiring processes are more formal but not particularly demanding on the technical side. Hierarchies are rigid. Salary increases, predictable and moderate.
Salary data (senior profile):
- Median: ~€45,000
- 75th percentile: ~€50,000
- 90th percentile: ~€60,000
Tier 3 — National Startups
Examples: OpositaTest, Tucuvi, Nyxell, SEAT:CODE*, MercadonaTech*, EDpuzzle
We enter the world of product. National startups are companies with their own digital product, generally in early or initial growth stages, with limited or recent funding, and relatively small technical teams.
The dynamic changes here. You're not building for an external client — you're building something of your own. That has implications for how work gets done, the technical decisions made, and the team culture. Autonomy is greater. So is the pressure.
*SEAT:CODE and MercadonaTech aren't startups per se, but they work and hire as if they were. That's why we put them in this group.
Salaries are higher than the previous tiers, though available funding limits how far the company can go. It's common for these companies to offer equity (usually phantom shares or stock options) as a supplement to base salary, with the promise that if things go well, there'll be a reward. Sometimes there is. Sometimes there isn't.
Salary data (senior profile):
- Median: ~€55,000
- 75th percentile: ~€65,000
- 90th percentile: ~€75,000
Tier 4 — National Scaleups
Examples: Factorial, Cabify, Typeform, Fever, Glovo
Tier 4 is where things start to get really interesting. National scaleups are companies that have already found their business model, have grown significantly, and are in expansion mode. They've closed Series B or C rounds, have engineering teams of dozens of people, and actively compete for senior talent in the national market.
English is more commonly the working language here, hiring processes are more demanding (multiple stages, technical tests, system design interviews), and the engineering culture is more developed.
Equity remains a relevant part of the package, though its real value depends on how the company evolves. And base salaries are already notably higher than in the previous tiers.
Salary data (senior profile):
- Median: ~€70,000
- 75th percentile: ~€85,000
- 90th percentile: ~€100,000
Tier 5 — International Scaleups and Established SaaS
Examples: GitHub, Docker, Bending Spoons, Freepik, RevenueCat
This is the tier most people undervalue or simply don't know exists. These aren't Big Tech in the traditional sense, but they pay as if they were. They are companies with global products, teams distributed worldwide, established business models, and a compensation philosophy very different from the traditional Spanish market.
What defines them is that they compete for talent globally, not nationally. That means their salary benchmarks aren't Spanish surveys — they're Levels.fyi, Silicon Valley benchmarks, and what their competitors in San Francisco or London pay.
Working here typically means mandatory English, long and demanding hiring processes, and a culture of high autonomy and accountability. In return, total compensation (base + bonus + equity) can be transformative for someone coming from the national market.
Salary data (senior profile):
- Median: ~€100,000
- 75th percentile: ~€150,000
- 90th percentile: ~€180,000
Base salary. Total package with bonus and RSUs can be significantly higher.
Tier 6 — Big Tech
Examples: Google, OpenAI, Meta, Spotify, Amazon, Netflix, X
The olympus. The companies everyone knows, that appear in every ranking, and whose hiring processes people study for months as if they were a professional exam. Because in a way, they are.
Compensation at Tier 6 works differently from the rest: base salary is just one part of the package. The bulk of compensation typically comes in the form of RSUs (Restricted Stock Units), which vest over time, plus an annual bonus. The result is that total compensation for a senior engineer at Google or Meta can be well above what the base salary alone suggests.
Hiring processes are the most demanding in the market: multiple rounds, algorithm interviews, system design, leadership assessments, bar raisers... It's not impossible to get in, but it requires specific, dedicated preparation. Being good at your day-to-day job is not enough.
Salary data (senior profile):
- Median: ~€150,000
- 75th percentile: ~€200,000
- 90th percentile: ~€250,000+
Base salary. Total package with RSUs and bonus can double these figures in some cases.
One final note before moving on: these numbers are for senior profiles with several years of experience. Junior or mid-level profiles have significantly different ranges at each tier, and staff, principal, or engineering management profiles can considerably exceed the 90th percentiles shown here — especially in the upper tiers.
Salary Isn't Everything (But Ignoring It Isn't the Solution Either)
At this point in the article, I think it's important to pause and say something that might sound contradictory coming from someone who's just spent several thousand words talking about salaries:
There is no better tier than another.
I mean it. And it's not a courtesy disclaimer to avoid seeming materialistic. It's that it genuinely depends on what you're looking for at this stage of your life and career.
Your Priorities Are Yours
Money is an important variable, but it's not the only one. Some people prefer working at a small company where they know everyone by name, where they can clock out at six, where they don't have to speak English in meetings, and where Monday morning doesn't trigger existential dread. And that's fine. In fact, given how privileged our sector is, it's great.
Some people value direct impact: seeing how the code they write today affects thousands of users tomorrow. Some value stability above all — especially if they have a mortgage, a family, or simply too much adrenaline from earlier chapters. Some value learning, even if the salary isn't the market's highest.
All of those priorities are valid. What's not valid is making decisions without information. If someone chooses to stay in a Tier 2 knowing exactly what that implies and what they're giving up — perfect. If someone stays in a Tier 1 for years thinking that's all there is — that's a problem.
The difference between settling and choosing consciously is information. And that's what this article is about.
The Hidden Cost of the Higher Tiers
It would be dishonest to talk only about salaries without mentioning what comes with them.
Tier 5 and Tier 6 companies pay very well. And in return, they expect a lot. High autonomy also means high accountability. Demanding hiring processes mean that once you're inside, the internal bar is equally high. Global teams mean meetings at times that don't always fit your life. A culture of ownership means problems are yours even when technically they aren't.
It's not that it's bad. It's that you need to know before you go in. Imposter syndrome at these companies is real and very common. The pressure to perform at the highest technical level also. And the pace of work, though it varies greatly by company and team, is rarely that of a traditional consultancy where everyone disconnects at six.
That said: the majority of people who make the leap don't want to go back. Because alongside the demands comes the learning, the exposure to very talented people, the resources to work well, and yes — the compensation that makes other things easier outside of work.
Not Everyone Can (or Wants to) Work at Netflix
And that's okay.
The tech ecosystem needs companies at every tier. It needs people to maintain bank systems, build software for small businesses, run consultancy projects. Not everything can be Big Tech and global scaleups. The labor market doesn't work that way.
Let's acknowledge that some people are much better than us. Or are willing to give more than we want to give. Or have circumstances that allow them to dedicate time and resources to getting into these companies.
A Note on Comparing Yourself
The hexamodal model can generate an unintended side effect: people start making toxic comparisons. "I'm in Tier 2 and I should be in Tier 4." "My colleague is in Tier 5 and I've been in Tier 3 for five years."
Be careful with that.
First, because career trajectories are not linear. Some people spend ten years in Tier 1 and jump directly to Tier 5 with the right preparation. Others climb every rung one by one. There is no correct path.
Second, because context matters. Someone with family responsibilities, living in a small city, in a niche sector, or with complex personal circumstances has a different set of options than someone without those constraints. Comparing without context is useless and sometimes cruel.
And third, because there are very talented people out there making great sacrifices to be where they are. Respecting that — and respecting your own path — is part of navigating this in a healthy way.
Know the market. Choose your path. Go for it. But don't punish yourself because your situation isn't someone else's.
Conclusion: More Information, Better Decisions
When I started thinking about this article, I asked myself what the central idea was that I wanted someone to take away after reading it from start to finish. And the answer was always the same:
The Spanish tech market is not a single market. It's six. And knowing which one you're in is the first step toward making better decisions.
You don't need to want to earn more money for this framework to be useful. You need to want to understand the rules of the game you're playing. Because the rules exist whether or not you know them. And they work against you if you don't.
What We've Covered
The hexamodal model is not an immovable scientific truth. It's an orientation tool, built from real data, that tries to capture something any person with experience in the Spanish tech sector recognizes when they see it: there are very different worlds coexisting under the same umbrella of "working in tech."
Six tiers. From the small consultancy that pays €30K to a junior and €45K to a senior, to the Big Tech company offering packages exceeding €200K including RSUs. With four stops in between, each with its own rules, processes, cultures, and salary ceilings.
And a gap that, far from closing, is widening.
What You Can Do With This
First: locate yourself. Which tier are you in right now? Not where you think you should be, but where you actually are. If you're not sure, look at the salary ranges, the company type, how internal hiring processes work, and the profiles of the people you work with.
Second: decide if you want to move. Not everyone has to want to jump to the next tier. But if you do, at least now you know what it implies and what you need to get there.
Third: talk about salaries. With your colleagues, with your network, with people from other tiers. Salary transparency in Spain is still taboo in many environments, and that taboo always benefits the same side of the table. Sharing information doesn't make you boastful. It makes you better informed — and makes those around you better informed too.
Fourth: use the resources available. Manfred's Salary Compass lets you see your relative market position against more than 120,000 reference profiles. The Tech Career Report has data by role, technology, and experience. The 2026 Salary Guide has the most up-to-date figures on the Spanish market. There's no excuse for making career decisions blind.
One Last Thing
This article is version 2 of a model that will keep evolving. The market changes, companies move between tiers, new categories emerge. If at some point the hexamodal model falls short, there will be a version 3.
But the underlying idea won't change: more information, better decisions. Always.
If you have questions, disagreements, or data that contradicts what you've read here, I'd love to know. The best way to improve this kind of analysis is with more people adding perspective. You can find me on LinkedIn.
And if this article has been useful to you, share it. Because there are a lot of people out there making career decisions without this map. And we already know what happens when you navigate without a map. We don't want anyone to sink. 😉
Audentes fortuna iuvat.
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