Spotify interview preparation
Hello, I have an interview coming up with Spotify for one of their backend data infra teams. Could folks from there provide some insight into the interview process and how to better prepare?
The process is different based on the role you are interviewing (backend engineer? data engineer?) but would roughly consist of a phone screen with a recruiter, a phone screen with an engineer, then a day of interviews at the office you'd be working at (about 5hrs of interviews and an hour lunch). The day is heavier on the technical portions but the cultural interview and fit is weighed heavily throughout the process (basically we don't want assholes who won't want to work as a team, regardless of engineering talent). You should be able to ask the recruiter about the process since they're Spotify employees and will organize the day. Not sure exactly which group you'd be part of, but most of the data infra and backend infra teams are healthy and have some of the most experienced engineers in tech. Apologies for the other posters. Blind is heavily slanted from people on the west coast and younger employees, who are a bit less in tune with Spotify's overall culture: our SF engineering office is interesting, but fairly small and disconnected from the main east coast and European offices; younger employees may overweight other people's pay vs their own happiness. Spotify doesn't compete on pay with the Netflixs and Googles of the world, but you could get a bump in NYC depending on how you factor in options (Spotify doesn't do RSUs yet). Stockholm is a totally different story as far as pay goes. You would not move there if you are primarily motivated by pay but if you have a family and value a significantly different work/life balance than you'd find anywhere in the US, it's great.
"Fit" is also a way of discriminating against women or non Americans. And bad management does a number on employee happiness.
Spotify's women in tech have been growing rapidly for the last two years and at a faster rate than most tech companies.
I did not say anything about our general recruitment. (We haven't grown much in female engineers compared to PMs and agile coaches, but that's besides the point.) It is a fact that our fit interviews are highly subjective. In ALL the interviews I was involved in, the female candidates got low ratings on values and the males got high ratings, for no good reason. Justifications were highly biased with some explicitly gendered assessments like "talks too much" or "throws her weight around." We rejected some of the men and accepted some women despite the fit interviews based on their technical performance. I can only speak anecdotally but it shows that values interviews are getting abused at least some times.
UnlockMeToday also got some working folks from the industry who can coach
I found this useful. i wish i get a referral https://youtu.be/u5AEmfOA8g8
Fuck yes Thanks !!
Don’t join Spotify. Interviewers are rude and unprofessional ummm
My advice is to not come work at Spotify. You’ll be underpaid and poorly managed.
This is the recurring thing I've heard about Spotify
Hmm, I'm not concerned about pay. I'm mainly looking for career growth, projects and a good set of colleagues. What is your opinion on those? Besides, I'm a L64 and my TC is $230k on avg. So not that much compared to the market 😊