Staff Engineer, Content Intelligence Infrastructure

Spotify AB; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Extensive learning opportunities

Flexible share incentives

Global parental leave

Employee assistance program

Flexible public holidays

Job summary

Spotify AB is looking for a Backend Engineer in London to lead the design and evolution of data and ML infrastructure systems. You'll build scalable infrastructure for processing audio, video, and text, and drive architectural decisions across distributed systems.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience in backend development, a strong programming background in Java, Python, or Scala, and demonstrates knowledge in AI systems.

Benefits include flexible working arrangements, extensive learning opportunities, and global parental leave.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building and scaling large-scale backend and infrastructure systems.
• Experience leading complex technical initiatives across multiple teams.
• Strong programming experience in Java, Python, or Scala.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design of data and ML infrastructure for content intelligence.
• Build scalable infrastructure for multimodal content processing.
• Drive architectural decisions across distributed systems.

Skills

Backend system design

Java

Python

Scala

AI and LLM infrastructure

High-volume multimedia processing

Job description

What You'll Do

• Lead the design and evolution of data, backend and ML infrastructure systems powering Spotify’s content intelligence capabilities.
• Build scalable infrastructure for multimodal content processing across audio, video, text, and image understanding pipelines.
• Partner closely with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, and senior engineers to shape technical strategy across the Content Intelligence Product Area.
• Drive architectural decisions across distributed systems, ML infrastructure, data processing platforms, and platform reliability.
• Improve infrastructure supporting AI and LLM‑enabled workflows, including podcast and audiobook transcript processing, metadata enrichment, and content understanding systems.
• Develop reliable and cost‑efficient systems for high‑throughput content processing and real‑time intelligence use cases.
• Collaborate across organizational boundaries to drive alignment, technical quality, and long‑term platform investments.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to raising the engineering bar across the organization.

Who You Are

• Extensive experience building and scaling large‑scale backend and infrastructure systems in distributed environments.
• Strong technical judgment and can balance scalability, reliability, cost, and product needs effectively.
• Strong programming experience in Java, Python, and/or Scala.
• Understanding the challenges of building systems that process high‑volume multimedia or real‑time workloads.
• Worked with systems and products that use AI and LLMs at large scale; can demonstrate direct experience in building such products, including a good understanding of the quality scale and cost trade‑offs of these technologies.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments and helping shape technical direction from the ground up.
• Effective communication across engineering, product, and leadership stakeholders.
• Experience leading complex technical initiatives that span multiple teams or organizational areas.
• Deep care for collaboration, mentorship, and creating alignment across teams.
• Exposure to search infrastructure, recommendation systems, or audio processing systems is a strong plus.
• Experience working in startup environments or early‑stage product areas where ownership and adaptability are critical is highly valued.

Where You'll Be

This role is based in London or Stockholm. We offer flexibility to work where you work best, with some in‑person meetings but still allowing for work from home.

Benefits

• Extensive learning opportunities through our dedicated team (GreenHouse).
• Flexible share incentives allowing you to choose how you share in our success.
• Global parental leave, six months off for all new parents.
• All The Feels, our employee assistance program and self‑care hub.
• Flexible public holidays, swap days off according to your values and beliefs.