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We design Spotify's consumer experience—end to end, moment to moment, across every screen, platform, and partner integration. Our mission is to make listening feel effortless, personal, and joyful for billions of users around the world. That means turning complexity into clarity across hundreds of touchpoints—from our mobile and desktop apps to the smart speakers, TVs, cars, and integrations where Spotify shows up every day. If it touches a consumer, we shape it. We bring deep insight into human behavior, design, and technology to craft experiences that feel intuitive, expressive, and unmistakably Spotify.
You'll lead a senior-heavy group of 10–12 machine learning engineers, including Staff engineers, who team up dynamically to solve high-priority business problems while staying deep in content understanding (audio, video and text). This is a player-coach role with a strong strategic remit: you'll shape where the group goes next, grow our audio understanding expertise over the long term, and help the team scale through thoughtful, practical use of AI in everyday engineering work.
What You'll Do
- Lead, coach and grow a group of 10+ senior and Staff machine learning engineers who team up dynamically around business problems while staying deep in their domain.
- Set technical and team strategy for multiple content understanding problems and turn it into clear, achievable plans.
- Own delivery of high-priority company initiatives, from shaping the problem through to measurable impact for listeners.
- Stay close to the technology as a player-coach. Lead technical strategy, reviewing designs, guiding modelling and retrieval choices, and contributing hands-on where it helps the team most.
- Define and champion a practical point of view on how ML engineers use AI tools in their day-to-day work, and help the team realise real productivity gains.
- Partner with product, design, research and other engineering leaders across Spotify to align priorities and share context.
Who You Are
- You have deep machine learning expertise and Staff-level technical judgement, and you're comfortable getting hands-on when it matters.
- You bring experience across NLP, audio / music content understanding and recommender systems.
- You have a track record of managing engineering teams while delivering complex, cross-functional initiatives.
- You enjoy coaching senior and Staff engineers, and you help experienced people grow their impact.
- You have a clear, informed point of view on using AI to improve how ML engineers work, and you can inspire a team to adopt it.
- You think strategically, communicate clearly, and can balance long-term bets with near-term delivery.
Where You'll Be
- This role is based in London or Stockholm.
- We offer the flexibility to work where you work best! There will be some in person meeetings, but still allows for flexibility to work from home.
Skills Required
- Deep machine learning expertise and Staff-level technical judgment
- Experience with NLP, audio or music content understanding, and recommender systems
- Experience managing engineering teams while delivering complex, cross-functional initiatives
- Experience coaching senior and Staff engineers
- Ability to set technical and team strategy and convert it into achievable plans
- Ability to communicate clearly and balance long-term strategy with near-term delivery
- Hands-on contribution to machine learning engineering when needed
- A clear perspective on using AI tools to improve ML engineering productivity
Spotify Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Spotify and has not been reviewed or approved by Spotify.
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Flexible Benefits — Employees consistently praise the total compensation package beyond base salary, highlighting a mix of RSUs, cash incentives, and stipends alongside core pay. The package is described as flexible and customizable through equity choices (e.g., RSUs, options, cash) that can be tailored for long-term wealth building.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off offerings are repeatedly highlighted as substantial, including generous vacation, paid sick days, volunteer time, and flexible holidays. These policies are framed as a meaningful part of the overall rewards experience beyond salary.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is portrayed as comprehensive, spanning medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability coverage, and mental health support. Additional employer contributions to HSAs are cited as strengthening the overall health and wellness value proposition.
Spotify Insights
What We Do
Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in Sweden in 2008. Discover, manage and share over 50m tracks for free, or upgrade to Spotify Premium to access exclusive features including offline mode, improved sound quality, and an ad-free music listening experience.
