Suggested rewrite: Led a cross-functional initiative that improved [business outcome] by [measurable result], demonstrating experience relevant to this role...
Backend Engineer – Music
Review the role, location requirements, compensation details, and application process before deciding whether this opportunity fits your next career move.
- Remote from
- USA
- Salary
- USD 151,942–189,927 / yr
- Department
- Software Engineering
- Employment
- Full Time
- Experience
- Open level
- Published
- Apply before
- 1 Nov 2026
- Listing views
- 30
- Application actions
- 0
Make your next move.
Prepare your resume, explore your fit, and draft a cover letter for this opportunity.
The role, at a glance.
This Backend Engineer role builds and operates high-scale services and APIs that power music-video discovery for Spotify listeners. The engineer will develop Java services and Scio-based data pipelines, collaborate with product and design partners, and contribute to system design and operational reliability. The position emphasizes distributed systems, cloud-scale production experience, data-informed engineering decisions, and iterative experimentation. It sits on an autonomous cross-functional team supporting personalized playlists, content categorization, and recommendation-adjacent experiences. The role is US-based with flexible work arrangements and collaboration in the US Eastern timezone.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Pace & Pressure
4/5Autonomy Level
4/5Communication Load
4/5Salary analysis
Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.
Core skills
Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.
Sample interview questions
I would begin by clarifying latency, availability, freshness, personalization, and traffic requirements. I would separate offline or near-real-time candidate generation from an online serving layer, use scalable storage and caching for playlist retrieval, and define resilient API contracts. I would also add observability, experimentation support, fallback recommendations, and capacity planning to protect the listener experience during failures or demand spikes.
I would explain the service’s traffic profile, dependencies, reliability objectives, and operational metrics such as latency, error rate, saturation, and throughput. I would describe how I used dashboards, alerts, safe deployments, load testing, and incident reviews to improve reliability. Strong examples should show ownership beyond implementation, including diagnosing failures and preventing recurrence.
I would define the data sources, event-time semantics, expected data volume, acceptable processing latency, and correctness requirements first. I would design idempotent transforms, manage late or malformed events, choose suitable windowing and storage patterns, and validate pipeline outputs through monitoring and data-quality checks. I would also make schemas, backfills, and versioning manageable so the pipeline can evolve safely.
I use small, measurable experiments behind feature flags with clear success metrics and rollback plans. I preserve quality through code review, automated tests, monitoring, and incremental architecture decisions rather than overbuilding before learning. Once an experiment proves valuable, I invest in hardening it with documentation, ownership, reliability goals, and maintainable interfaces.
I would start by aligning with stakeholders on the user problem, success criteria, constraints, and nonfunctional requirements. I would present a small set of technical options with tradeoffs, agree on an iterative delivery plan, and communicate progress and risks clearly. After launch, I would evaluate product and system metrics with partners to refine the solution based on evidence.
About this role.
The Music Mission team owns Spotify’s end to end proposition for music creators and the experiences they create for fans. The organization is dedicated to building tools and services to enable creation, promotion, expression, and monetization at scale.
Our team makes music videos easy for fans to discover and meaningful for artists, powered by scalable, intelligent infrastructure that grows with our catalog. We’re building personalized music video playlists, sorting videos into meaningful categories, and learning which videos listeners are most likely to love, then helping that content reach the right people.
As a Backend Engineer, you’ll help shape how millions of listeners experience music videos on Spotify, working alongside Data Engineers, Backend Engineers, and partners across product and design.
What You’ll Do
Build and run production backend systems that improve how listeners discover and enjoy music videos.
Design, develop, and evolve scalable backend services and APIs that support high-traffic parts of the Spotify app.
Develop and maintain Java services and Scio data pipelines used by millions of listeners every day.
Partner with product managers and engineers to solve complex problems and create smooth, enjoyable experiences for listeners.
Contribute to system design, code quality, and reliable, well-run systems as part of an autonomous, cross-functional squad.
Explore and experiment with AI tools available at Spotify to improve how we build and ship.
Who You Are
You have experience with Java or another JVM language, and familiarity with (or interest in learning) data pipeline tools like Scio, Apache Beam, or similar.
You’ve built and operated distributed, high-volume services in production, ideally on a cloud platform such as Google Cloud Platform.
You’re comfortable with system design, data structures, and algorithms, and use data to inform how you design systems and make decisions.
You work directly with partners to understand their needs and turn them into scalable backend systems, APIs, and pipelines.
You enjoy working in teams where experimentation and iteration are part of everyday work.
You care about code quality, reliability, and maintainability, and take pride in shipping well-crafted work.
You bring a collaborative mindset and are comfortable working across team boundaries. Experience in data engineering or machine learning is a bonus, not a requirement.
Where You’ll Be
- We offer you the flexibility to work where you work best! There will be some in person meetings, but still allows for flexibility to work from home.
- This team operates within the US Eastern timezone for collaboration
Compensation
Additional Information
The United States base range for this position is $151,942–$189,927 USD, plus equity. The benefits available for this position include health insurance, six-month paid parental leave, 401(k) retirement plan, monthly meal allowance, 23 paid days off, paid flexible holidays, and paid sick leave. These ranges may be modified in the future.
Spotify is an equal opportunity employer. You are welcome at Spotify for who you are, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or what’s playing in your headphones. Our platform is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all thrive, contribute, and be forward-thinking! So bring us your personal experience, your perspectives, and your background. It’s in our differences that we will find the power to keep revolutionizing the way the world listens.
At Spotify, we are passionate about inclusivity and making sure our entire recruitment process is accessible to everyone. We have ways to request reasonable accommodations during the interview process and help assist in what you need. If you need accommodations at any stage of the application or interview process, please let us know – we’re here to support you in any way we can.
This job listing has been manually reviewed by the Jobicy Trust & Safety Team for compliance with our posting guidelines, including verification of the company's legitimacy, accuracy of job details, clarity of remote work policy, and absence of misleading or fraudulent content.
Apply now.
Follow the employer’s application method and review Jobicy’s safety guidance before sharing personal information.
Continue on the employer website
Protect your personal information and never pay to secure an interview or job offer. .
