Core Experience Staff Designer, Spotify
Playback Experiences
More information about location
Commercial music streaming service
Be an early applicant
Commercial music streaming service
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it
Role
Who you are
- A senior design leader experienced in systems-level product design at scale — fluent in connecting user experience, technology, and playback architecture
- A leader skilled in Motion, Interaction, and prototyping, with a curiosity about simplifying technical intricacies into user-friendly solutions
- Experienced working across multiple content modalities (audio, video, voice, live, interactive) and crafting for continuity across them
- A confident collaborator who thrives in cross-functional, technically sophisticated product environments
- Passionate about mentorship, enabling other designers to think in systems and scale their craft
- Curious about the role of AI and adaptive intelligence in shaping more personal and expressive playback experiences. Energised by crafting experiences that feel alive, and uniquely Spotify
What the job involves
- Spotify is seeking a Staff Designer to define and evolve the future of Playback Experiences — the heartbeat of Spotify’s multi-format experience
- Playback Experiences is where everything comes together: sound, motion, interaction, and emotion, synchronized across every format
- As Spotify continues to expand across audio, video, and emerging interactive formats, this role will shape how playback feels, behaves, and scales
- You’ll architect a cohesive, flexible framework that supports innovation and business growth while maintaining simplicity, delight, and design coherence across Spotify’s playback ecosystem
- As a Staff Designer, you’ll define the architecture of the playback experience — how systems interconnect, how formats transition, and how users flow through Spotify’s core playback surfaces
- You’ll bring structure to complexity, leading the design vision for a human and unmistakably Spotify experience
- Playback Vision & Systems Architecture: Lead the end-to-end vision and design strategy for Now Playing View on mobile, defining how playback operates and scales across all content formats
- Design and evolve the systemic framework that unifies video, audio, voice, and interactive experiences, ensuring consistent logic, flexibility, and cohesion
- Partner with engineering to shape technical design models, playback state transitions, and scalable interface patterns for future formats and capabilities
- Drive the evolution of core playback surfaces; including the queue, playing scroll, and format transitions, ensuring fluid continuity across experiences
- Collaboration & Craft Leadership: Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Research, and Data Science to deliver playback experiences that balance innovation with stability
- Collaborate across Experience to ensure playback design principles are cohesive and scalable across Spotify’s ecosystem. Set a high bar for craft and systems rigour, combining storytelling, motion, and interaction design with strong technical understanding and design-for-scale thinking
- Innovation & Mentorship: Explore how AI and adaptive systems can enhance playback — from generative motion to personalized, context-aware experiences that deepen engagement
- Mentor and develop designers within Play Design, elevating technical fluency and systems literacy
- Contribute to and evolve Spotify’s design frameworks and principles for multi-format playback, ensuring scalability and design consistency across product lines
- This team operates within the Central European and GMT time zone for collaboration
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Spotify was founded in an attempt to combat the rampant music piracy that was causing significant harm to the industry. The company has since taken music streaming mainstream and now has 180m+ paying subscribers across the world.
With features that include a highly accessible interface and a vast catalogue of artists, Spotify's strong brand has been able to maintain growth in spite of fierce competition from deep-pocketed rivals like Amazon and Apple. The company has achieved this by making smart acquisitions to move into other verticals to strengthen its offerings, especially podcasting, by acquiring Gimlet Media, Anchor and Parcast.
Spotify's future plans include rapid growth with a goal to become a one-stop destination for all digital sound, as well as AI and NFT integrations. However, high costs incurred from the acquisition of exclusive podcasts, increasing competitor strength, and weak bottom-line growth mean that the company must find a balance to maintain its position in the sector.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
23% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Jan 2016
$1bn
CONVERTIBLE
Jun 2015
$526m
SERIES G
Total funding: $2.1bn
Company benefits
- Extensive learning opportunities, through our dedicated team, GreenHouse
- Flexible share incentives letting you choose how you share in our success
- Global parental leave, six months off - fully paid - 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
Company HQ
Norrmalm, Stockholm, Stockholms län
Leadership
Daniel Ek
(CEO & Chairman)Founded Spotify in 2006. Previously worked as an executive at Tradera, an auction company that was sold to eBay and was briefly the CEO of uTorrent.
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