IMHO the crisis is fueled by the fact that more people want to enjoy the beauty of barcelona short-term (tourists) AND long term (digital nomads moving and working from there). Short term stayers "pay" with increasing hotel&airbnb prices, long-term stayers with low salaries. According to Glassdoor, a software engineer in Barcelona has a 30-40% lower salary than the same position in e.g. Vienna or Berlin. And believe me, hiring in Barcelona is easy.
Finding good talent is hard. Spain is filled with low grade coders. A bit unrespectful, but I have experienced it already for many many years. And not only tech. Also sales etc. Quality output is hard to find there.
Are you hiring junior or lower-budget developers? That might explain your experience. I've worked with great engineers in Spain, but of course, like anywhere, quality varies.
The way I see it, the biggest factor that is amplifying the crisis is that the investors (mostly American companies and individuals) and nomads (Apparently 50% of them American or something), have much more usable cash compared to Europeans due to the bloated investment tools and high cost of living in the US. As a result, they buy the housing under the house of Europeans in multiples, swiftly gentrifying neighborhoods with short-term rentals or just parking cash on housing to make a quick buck.
