Principal, AI-Driven Search & Personalization

Spotify Los Angeles; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work location

Learning opportunities

Share incentives

Parental leave

Employee assistance program

Job summary

Spotify is seeking a Principal Product Manager to lead Search Personalization, shaping how hundreds of millions of users find content, spanning ranking, relevance, and AI-powered features. This role sits at the intersection of search systems, AI, and user experience, guiding two squads and collaborating with engineering leadership.

You will influence product strategy, mentor PMs, and drive cross-functional alignment while operating in a flexible London/Stockholm setup.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of product management experience, with 3+ years leading search, discovery, or information retrieval products at scale (100M+ users).
• Deep technical understanding of search systems—ranking architectures, retrieval strategies, evaluation methodology, and trade-offs between relevance, latency, cost, and freshness.
• Experience with AI/ML-powered search features—semantic search, LLM-based reranking, recommendations, or similar—and leading a team through the transition to AI-native search.
• Track record of managing complex stakeholder landscapes with competing priorities and limited resources, and building principled prioritization frameworks.
• Strategic thinking at portfolio level—synthesizing multiple initiatives, setting a coherent vision, and communicating it to executives.
• Clear, convincing communication translating technical complexity for leadership, bet owners, and cross-functional partners.
• Experience mentoring and developing early-career PMs, and influencing without formal authority.
• Familiarity with music, audio, or media technology and understanding content-rich platforms.
• Experience operating Search as a platform serving multiple internal teams or content verticals.
• Experience in content integrity, trust & safety, or regulatory compliance in search or discovery contexts.

Responsibilities

• Set the product strategy and multi-cycle roadmap for Search Personalization at Spotify — spanning ranking, relevance, retrieval, AI-native features, quality, and trust.
• Drive the evolution of Search toward AI-native experiences — AI Overviews, semantic search, LLM reranking — balancing innovation with quality and cost discipline.
• Own the Search quality bar: define how relevance, trust, compliance, and user experience connect into a holistic quality framework with measurable outcomes.
• Manage Search’s role as a shared surface across many company strategies — build prioritization frameworks, communicate trade-offs, and represent Search at executive forums.
• Influence and coach junior PMs working in Search.
• Partner with engineering leadership to make architectural decisions balancing short-term delivery with long-term Search health.
• Drive cross-functional alignment where Search intersects.

Skills

Product strategy

Leadership

Search/IR

AI/ML

Job description

Spotify is seeking a Principal Product Manager to lead Search Personalization, shaping how hundreds of millions of users find content, spanning ranking, relevance, and AI-powered features. This role sits at the intersection of search systems, AI, and user experience, guiding two squads and collaborating with engineering leadership.

You will influence product strategy, mentor PMs, and drive cross-functional alignment while operating in a flexible London/Stockholm setup.