Remote opportunity at
SpotifySenior Backend Engineer, Home Surfaces
Spotify operates the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service, giving billions of fans access to music and podcasts. The Home Podcasts Squad within the Personalization…
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About This Role
Spotify operates the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service, giving billions of fans access to music and podcasts. The Home Podcasts Squad within the Personalization team is searching for a Senior Backend Engineer, Home Surfaces to create backend infrastructure and pipelines that drive podcast recommendations across key distribution points such as Home, the Podcast Subfeed, and the Now Playing view. This full-time, remote position is open to candidates located…
Job Description
Spotify operates the world's most popular audio streaming subscription service, giving billions of fans access to music and podcasts. The Home Podcasts Squad within the Personalization team is searching for a Senior Backend Engineer, Home Surfaces to create backend infrastructure and pipelines that drive podcast recommendations across key distribution points such as Home, the Podcast Subfeed, and the Now Playing view.
This full-time, remote position is open to candidates located within the North Americas region where Spotify maintains a work location, though the team collaborates primarily in the Eastern Standard time zone. The role involves designing high-volume services that retrieve, rank, and filter podcast content for millions of listeners globally. Professionals joining this squad will guide backend systems through their complete lifecycle while collaborating closely with product managers, data scientists, designers, and fellow engineers.
The position suits individuals who enjoy navigating ambiguous technical problems, utilizing data to shape product choices, and sharing engineering practices with teammates. Candidates will work with large-scale data processing technologies and modern infrastructure platforms to support rapid experimentation and iteration.
Responsibilities
- Design and build backend systems supporting personalization and recommendations at Spotify scale
- Develop reliable, high-performance services capable of processing large-volume recommendation workloads
- Construct and enhance infrastructure and pipelines for retrieving, ranking, and delivering podcast recommendations
- Partner with product managers, data scientists, designers, and engineers to create new features and experiment strategies
- Manage backend systems throughout their entire lifecycle from technical design to deployment and continuous improvement
- Analyze data and experimentation outcomes to measure system changes against the listener experience
- Resolve complex technical challenges and contribute to long-term personalization system architecture
- Mentor team members and share engineering practices to foster collective growth
Requirements
- Experience building production systems using Java
- Background in designing, deploying, operating, and evolving distributed high-volume services
- Direct experience collaborating with stakeholders to gather requirements and build broadly adopted APIs and systems
- Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and system design
- Familiarity with large-scale data processing technologies for personalized product experiences
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment focused on rapid experimentation and iteration
- Experience utilizing data to drive technical and product decisions
- Working knowledge of technologies such as gRPC, GCP, BigQuery, Bigtable, or comparable platforms
Core Skills
Benefits
- Health insurance
- Six-month paid parental leave
- 401(k) retirement plan
- Monthly meal allowance
- 23 paid days off
- Paid flexible holidays
- Paid sick leave
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the location and remote policy for this role?
This is a remote position open to candidates located within the North Americas region where Spotify has a work location, operating within the Eastern Standard time zone for collaboration.
What employment type is this position?
The posting specifies that this is a full-time employment opportunity.
What is the salary range for the Senior Backend Engineer role?
The United States base salary range for this position is $164,448 to $234,926, plus equity.
What are the core technical requirements for applicants?
Applicants must have experience building production systems with Java, designing distributed high-volume services, and working with stakeholders to design widely adopted APIs and systems, alongside a strong grasp of algorithms, data structures, and system design.
Sample Interview Questions
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