Cleaning vs Coding: Why Spanish Freelance Developers Struggle

Cleaning or Coding: Where the Real Money Lies

Is it more profitable to clean stairs than to code in Spain? This question, sounding like a bar-side speculation, stems from a specific case: a software developer trained in Web Application Development via vocational training, fired from a company heavily reliant on Kit Digital clients. His situation opens an uncomfortable gap. The issue isn't programming itself, but doing it as a self-employed professional in Spain, where corporate clients are scarce and individual consumers rarely request code.

Salary vs Self-Employment: Where the Comparison Breaks Down

It is crucial to distinguish two markets that do not compete on equal footing. A salaried engineer in Spain earned 30 euros per hour, while cleaning services paid 5, according to testimony in the case. As a qualified employee, the programmer earns several times more than a cleaner. The thesis that cleaning yields higher returns only holds when the programmer becomes a freelancer and must seek clients individually.

Here lies the asymmetry. A locksmith or cleaning company posts an ad on Google Ads or Facebook, and the phone rings: the client is any neighbor with a stuck door or dirty stairs. The programmer advertising services on LinkedIn hits another wall. Programming is not needed by individuals; only companies, and well-paying ones do not seek suppliers via social media.

Why Don't Companies Hire Freelance Programmers?

Because serious contracts circulate through other channels. Some argue that good clients move through private networks, using references, public repositories, and expensive certifications as filters, precisely to avoid being flooded with amateurs. On platforms where bidding for fixed-price projects occurs, projects can be seen for 140 euros. At such rates, an autonomous cleaner's hourly wage begins to look competitive.

Job postings are also not the salvation they appear to be. Part of the analysis warns that many originate from commission-based recruitment agencies, with the same vacancy appearing duplicated by multiple firms. Then come four interviews and a technical test. In contrast, manual labor involves no group dynamics, no psychological tests, and no five years of prior experience required to start.

Cleaning Has No Frameworks or Technical Tests

Here the matter becomes more juicy. Cleaning does not require recycling every five years or learning the latest framework so the previous one becomes obsolete. The programmer carries a continuous training burden paid from their own pocket and free time, with increasingly short cycles and technologies replaced before they are mastered. Some describe the mental cost of the profession: the error that fails to compile on Friday is still pondered on Sunday. Cleaning ends when the shift ends.

Cleaning, AI, and Layoffs: The Tech Sector Falls Behind

Above all, this weighs on a market context. After interest rate hikes, the technology sector lost funding for new projects, and part of the analysis reads this as another bubble bursting. Mass layoffs are justified by the alibi of artificial intelligence, although behind this lie repositionings at half price. Added to this is offshoring: if work can be done remotely, someone is always willing to code the same website for less. In this scenario, cleaning serves as a refuge: a ladder is not automated like a webpage.

The Disorienting Calculation: 2,700 Euros Monthly from Cleaning

The most provocative version comes with numbers. It describes cleaning workers chaining multiple services, with a morning shift paid at 12 or 15 euros per hour, partly in cash, and an afternoon shift, totaling about 2,700 euros monthly with subsequent tax deductions. This is a claim arising from a specific case, not official statistics, and admits many variations. But the contrast with qualified salaries rarely reaching that figure is what ignites the fuse.

The Programmer Who Lives Off Software for 30 Years

The most solid counterargument is not the salary: it is the product. A developer can build a tool in one year and live off it for decades, with maintenance and support. A real case is described: software for a very specific niche developed while the author worked as an employee, which has already accumulated three decades of profitability. Cleaning repeats daily; software, once built, works alone. The problem is the statistics: for every project that reaches that level, thousands die in the attempt.

In the end, the comparison is as tricky as it is profitable for those who support it. The plumber gets paid today; the programmer gets paid tomorrow, if the market wants it. That the discussion remains alive while the technology sector lays off workers and the ladder waits its turn says much about how poorly the accounts balance.