Of all places in Spain Madrid is probably the "meh"est. Not wanting to be snark but the selection process seems strange indeed.

The selection process is strange indeed. Google's first German office was in Munich of all places. Extremely expensive, not very exciting (for people to move to), and very high competition for IT workforce. So they have one of Germany's best universities for IT, but the differences between universities actually aren't that large here.

I think that was because of an acquisition.

It's the door to South America and more than 572 million potential customers.

For a software engineering campus this is relevant how?

E.g. in Poland software is more Krakow based than Warsaw. Because why would you be wasting on rent, being in a large city where you aren't that important?

I think the question was about the city, not the country.

Wrong guess

They develop for LATAM in other offices