Ask HN: What's Spotify NYC culture like?

jasonmotylinski · on July 27, 2017

NYC Spotify employee here. Spotify has a very honest, open, and autonomous culture. Spotify is comprised of many Missions which are defined by a business purpose like ads, user engagement, or analytics. Within a Mission you will have one or more Tribes. Each Tribe is loosely associated with the Mission goal and addresses a portion of the overall Mission. A Squad is a delivery team/product team. Squads are accountable for building great products. They are given autonomy to make the right decisions for the direction of their product. Squads function as "mini-startups", if you will. A grouping of many Squads is called a Tribe. A Mission will have one or more Tribes. It's a tad confusing and I'm sure I've gotten some of definitions wrong, but you get the general gist.

As for the people culture, Spotify values the growth of employees. We focus heavily on personal growth over product delivery. We believe if we build good people they will build good products. I was doubtful before joining Spotify that they would fulfill everything I was told (about the culture) during the interview process but everything has held true.

For better descriptions of Spotify check out the engineering culture video: https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-engineering-cult...

I would encourage you to apply. Spotify is a great place to work.

tastefulcakeful · on July 28, 2017

Thanks I really appreciate the perspective! Quick follow up, are you assigned a team from the get go and what's the the mobility between missions/tribes?

I'm definitely going to apply, but I image they get inundated with apps so I'm trying to learn as much I can for that cover letter (hopefully that counts for something,haha?).

Would you suggest I email a recruiter directly on top of applying online?

halflings · on July 27, 2017

That seems like a very specific question, maybe something that you could get a faster answer to by messaging Spotify NYC employees on LinkedIn?

I worked at Spotify Stockholm (doing my master thesis there), and it was quite nice. Pretty much what you'd expect from bigger tech companies (Google, FB), only on a smaller scale. I'm sure you'll find a lot to do as a UX researcher since they are constantly experimenting with new features.

8draco8 · on July 27, 2017

Glassdoor is a great place to start your research https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/spotify