Why I Don’t Mind Leaving Madrid for Lisbon

Tonight, I leave.

After an intense week of interviews and tests, I’m moving to Lisbon to join Monzo Bank as a Client Specialist. For those curious about how I landed it, the app that made it happen was ***GoPlaces***. Worth checking out if you’re in a similar position.

But this post isn’t really about the job. It’s about why leaving Madrid doesn’t break my heart the way people seem to expect it to.

The city that never slows down and that’s the problem

Look at the photo I’ve attached. Not a Saturday before Christmas.Just Monday. There’s no way to even do your groceries in peace. The city is relentlessly packed from the moment you step outside, and the commute is nothing short of a daily competition, who can overtake the most people on the pavement, who can squeeze into a sardine-can metro first. I stopped finding it energetic a long time ago. It just became noise.

Half a life left behind and I’m okay with that

Don’t get me wrong. I’m leaving half my life in Madrid. Friends, memories, years of building something. That’s real and it weighs on me.

But as someone who spent years as a quant researcher, I’ve learned one thing above all else: building from the ground up is not something to fear. Every model I ever built started from nothing, a blank script, a hypothesis, zero data. My personal life is no different. Starting over is something I actually know how to do.

The people who matter showed up

My family and friends didn’t blink. They were happy for me, supportive from the first moment I mentioned it. That says everything. When the people who love you most tell you to go, you go.

Two consultancies in the centre of Madrid taught me something

I won’t name them. But I will say this: I’ve noticed a pattern. The more central the office, the worse the culture tends to be. Maybe it’s the pressure of the location, the status games, the commute stress that everyone carries in with them every morning. Whatever the reason, my best professional experiences have never been in glass towers in the middle of a capital city.

The cost of living conversation nobody wants to have

Food prices in Madrid are genuinely difficult now. A normal weekly shop feels like a luxury. And before anyone says “it’s the same everywhere” yes, that’s exactly my point. Every major capital in the world is pricing out the people who actually keep it running. I’m not naive enough to think Lisbon is cheap anymore either, but at least I’m making a change on my own terms.

Which brings me to something I’m genuinely thrilled about: my new employer has arranged accommodation at a very reasonable price. I’ll say this plainly, at 30, this move is the first time I’ve truly been independent. Draw your own conclusions about what that says about life in Madrid right now.

What comes next

I’m not disappearing from this space. I plan to keep writing about quant methodologies, systematic research, and whatever I learn along the way ,just from a new city, with a new view.

A new life is waiting. I hope I’m up to it.

Tonight, Madrid. Tomorrow, Lisbon.