[gurtwo]

In Madrid (Spain), an engineer with 10 years of experience in a technical role can expect an average of 55k€ per year, before a 25% tax cut. Similar (or a bit lower) for a programmer. I won't call it a crappy salary. You can make a pretty decent living with that. Welcome to southern Europe!

[jmra]

55k€ - 25% = 41250€ = 3437,5 EUR/month... after 10 years, in Madrid, which is expensive for Spain.

More or less in the range I told in my comment :)