How to choose a technology company in Andalusia
To choose a technology company in Andalusia, start by verifying it exists as a real legal entity, then judge the proposal by how it answers four questions: who actually writes the code, who owns it, how it is tested, and what happens the day the team leaves. Proximity matters far less than any of those.
First, check the company is real
Anyone can put a logo on a website. What cannot be faked is the companies register: in Spain every S.L. is entered in the Registro Mercantil of its province, and entries are published in the official gazette, the BORME. You can look a company up through the registrars' portal, registradores.org.
What you are checking is simple: that the legal name on the invoice matches a real registered company, at the address it claims, incorporated when it says it was.
As a worked example, here is ours: OBSIDIAAN TECH S.L, Registro Mercantil de Granada, Volume 1790, Book 0, Folio 133, Sheet GR-57597, first entry, 16 February 2022. That is the level of detail a company should be able to hand you without hesitating.
Local or remote: what actually changes
Being in the same province matters less than most buyers expect. Software has been built remotely for a decade, and a team two streets away that never shows you working code is worse than a remote one that ships every two weeks.
Proximity does help in three specific moments: the kick-off, where a room beats a video call for pinning down what the project really is; working sessions with your own technical staff; and large deliveries or migrations, where being on site shortens the feedback loop.
What genuinely matters locally is time zone, language and legal framework — and those you already share with any company in Spain.
The questions worth asking before you sign
- Who writes the code? Ask whether any part is subcontracted, and to whom. Subcontracting is not automatically bad, but you should know it, because it changes who you can call when something breaks.
- Who owns the code, and where does the repository live? Get it in writing, and make sure your organisation has access from day one rather than at the end.
- How is it tested? "We test it" is not an answer. Automated tests, and for anything holding money or personal data, a security review before it ships.
- What happens when you leave? Documentation and a handover to whoever maintains it. A project you cannot maintain without the original team is a project you have rented, not bought.
- What is explicitly not included? Most disputes come from here: hosting, domains, maintenance, support hours, third-party licences.
- Can we start small? A narrow proof of concept tells you more about a supplier than any proposal document.
Signals, and what they usually mean
| Signal | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Published code you can read | The work survives being looked at |
| A fixed price before knowing the scope | The risk has been priced in, and you are paying it |
| Partial deliveries you can test | You will find out early if it is going wrong |
| A single delivery at the end | You find out when there is no budget left to fix it |
| Verifiable register details | The entity is real and traceable |
| Only a contact form and stock photos | Nothing you can verify from outside |
Public funding exists, but do not pick a supplier for it
There are public programmes for digitalisation — Kit Digital for smaller companies, and CDTI funding for R&D projects. They are worth knowing about, and they have their own eligibility rules and deadlines.
What they should not do is decide your supplier. A grant covers part of the cost once; a badly built system costs you every year after that.
If the project touches money or personal data
That changes the bar. Code that custodies funds or processes personal data needs a security review before it goes live, not after the first incident. Ask who does that review and whether it is included. If the answer is that they review their own work with no external check, treat that as a data point.
We build in Granada and work across all eight provinces of Andalusia, remotely by default. The advice above applies whoever you end up hiring — including if it is not us.