Life at Spotify: The Podcast: Recent Episodes
Life at Spotify
At Spotify, we like to think of ourselves as a really big band. On the Life at Spotify podcast, we give you a behind-the-scenes look into what being a band member is all about. Our mission is to showcase Spotifers and the unique learning experiences that drive our culture and help us all grow. Join your hosts, May Hasso & Chris Skinner, as they speak with an array of other band members from around the globe to chat about Life@Spotify
Check out our career page for open roles: LifeatSpotify.com Follow along on: Instagram.com/LifeatSpotify Twitter.com/LifeatSpotify Linkedin.com/company/Spotify
Today we will be discussing the most anticipated Spotify campaign of the year, Wrapped. Jess, a Global Marketing Experience Lead on the project, will be speaking with us about the global collaboration & teamwork needed to bring this massive campaign to life for our listeners.
At Spotify, innovation is at the heart of everything we do. It ignites our imagination, powers our ingenuity and drives us to pursue bigger and better possibilities. Our ability to consistently innovate keeps us at the top of our game and helps us deliver a first-in-class audio experience. However, women are underrepresented as inventors globally. 2022 Spotify joined the Diversity Pledge to increase diversity in innovation. In this episode one of our innovators, Mounia, will talk about her view on diversity, innovation and how this leads to new patents and a product that our listeners, artists and creators enjoy and love.
*In the episode Wellness Week is mentioned, you can read more about it here:https://hrblog.spotify.com/2023/11/07/hello-wellness-week-my-old-friend-ive-come-to-talk-with-you-again-%f0%9f%8e%b6%f0%9f%8e%b6/
At Spotify Mental health has been a priority since 2018, when we launched our Heart & Soul initiative. For us, mental health is a state of well-being where we are able to cope with the daily stresses of life, function productively, and make meaningful contributions. Heart & Soul aims to raise awareness, enable support, and normalize the conversation to reduce mental health stigma at work. In this episode, we hear from Taeho, our Podcast Partner Manager in South Korea, who also is a heart & Soul ambassador. We’ll bring you the how and why on what it means to be an ambassador. And as if that’s not enough, Tahoe shares some bits and pieces about the culture at Spotify.
Welcome back for a new season of Life at Spotify the podcast! What better way to start the new season than with Intro Days - the trip that all new Spotifiers take to Stockholm to meet our co-founders, company leaders and connect with bandmates.
The continuation of our conversation Amarjit, the MD for India and the GM for SAMEA (also known as S.Asia, Mid East and Africa). He will be telling us all about his journey leading new markets at Spotify and how he keeps his team inspired.
Note - Chris is post surgery on his nose in this episode and sounds quite nasal
Today we are speaking with Amarjit, the MD for India and the GM for SAMEA (also known as S.Asia, Mid East and Africa). He will be telling us all about his journey leading new markets at Spotify and how he keeps his team inspired.
Note - Chris is post surgery on his nose in this episode and sounds quite nasal
Today we are speaking with Ruben, an engineer in our Gated Podcast Team. Ruben will be talking to us about his journey to Spotify starting off as an intern, how he now helps new joiners settle in, and how he personally got involved with Spotify’s largest and global club community.
Today we are speaking with Angelica, an engineer in our Ad Performance Platform Tribe based in Brazil. Angelica will be talking to us about her experience with our Working From Anywhere (WFA) program, how she connects with other Spotifiers across the world, and the flexibility that WFA has granted her.
For our first episode of the new season we are celebrating reaching 200 million subscribers @ Spotify by talking to Ana-Sandra who’s a senior director in our Markets & Subscriber Growth Team. Ana-Sandra will talk to us about what it’s like to work as part the team that reached this amazing milestone, how many teams had to collaborate across the globe to achieve this & everything she has learnt on the journey.
For our first episode of the new season we are celebrating reaching 200 million subscribers @ Spotify by talking to Ana-Sandra who's a senior director in our Markets & Subscriber Growth Team. Ana-Sandra will talk to us about what it's like to work as part the team that reached this amazing milestone, how many teams had to collaborate across the globe to achieve this & everything she has learnt on the journey.
This episode, we are speaking with Mohit Jitani, a Principal Product Manager in our Freemium mission. Today he will be speaking with us about the secret sauce to winning during Hack Week, how Spotify supported him during a huge cultural move, what if feels like to belong at Spotify, & what it takes to launch Spotify in India
This episode, we’re speaking with Lauren Campbell, an engineer in our Home Podcasts Squad -- the team responsible for personalizing podcast content on your home page. Today Lauren will be speaking with us about her experience with a Spotify internship that she started after getting an MBA, and how a project she moved into became her full-time role.
This episode Chris is flying solo as May is busy planning awesome events for Spotifiers around the world. Today we’re speaking with Javier Moscardó, a Senior Engineering Manager in our Freemium Mission. He’s part of the Edison Tribe, whose mission is to create new experiences & develop new offerings to attract users to Spotify.
His work focuses on driving growth through business model innovation & today he’s going to talk to us about the role he plays in creating new business lines for Spotify & how he helps innovate our existing products.
Today May is flying solo and speaking with Jen Lamere, a Senior Engineer in our Personalization Mission. Jen is part of a team that which focuses on Listening Experiences for Spotify users - building personalized playlists & launching products like Daily Drive & Blend. Jen will be speaking to May about her role, some of the great products she's worked on, mentoring women in tech & more.
This episode, we’re speaking with Leonardo de La Rocha, Senior Director of Product Design and Head of Design for the Ads BU. His team is focused on creating stellar ad experiences and tools for advertisers and publishers to reach their audiences through Spotify. Leonardo tells us why ads are exciting at Spotify and what he thinks the future of ads could look like.
Meet your new hosts: May Hasso from the CommunityX Team & Chris Skinner from the GreenHouse Team. In this episode, they introduce the new season of Life at Spotify, tell us about their day-to-day roles, their career journey, and they will introduce the 3 questions that will be asked of all upcoming guests--which are linked to our culture at Spotify!
It’s unusual for a tech company to take a customer approach for its own employees. At Spotify, we approach internal product development as if it were consumer-facing. And Carol Costello, Head of Platform Product Marketing and Global R&D Brand, heads up the team that handles it all. Tune in to hear about how Backstage makes our teams better by allowing our engineers to learn more from the outside, and how Carol herself turned a career in political polling into advertising and branding.
Interning at Spotify looked a bit different this year, with all our interns working remotely. In this episode, Tilo chats with Meghan Vallandriello, a 2021 Backend Engineering Intern on the Native Ads Platform, Jesley Faye Fantolgo, a 2021 intern on the Artist & Label Partnerships team, and Isaiah Spicer, a 2018 Software Engineering Intern who is now a full-time Spotifier. Hear about the challenges and learnings of interning in a virtual world, and what it’s like to have experienced the program both virtually and IRL.
In this episode, Tilo chats with Niklas Lundberg, Global Head of New Markets, Phiona Okumu, Head of Music, Sub Saharan Africa, and Taeho Kim, Podcast Partner Manager in South Korea, on what it takes to collaborate across cultures (both pre and post-pandemic) to bring Spotify to listeners in new markets.
Neither of these amazing women started out dreaming of being engineers, yet against all odds, here they are! Join Tilo as she chats with Adele Okoubo, Staff Engineer in the Platform Mission, and Sasha Hellstenius, backend engineer in the Personalization mission in Spotify’s R&D Team in New York, as they give us a glimpse of what they've learned along their paths to Spotify, while also sharing some advice for other women looking to enter the world of tech engineering.
Podcasting is a relatively new field to build a career in. For many creative professionals interested in getting started in podcasting, it’s all about the transferable skill sets they gained working in other industries. Get the inside scoop from TD St. Matthew-Daniel, a podcast lead for the Ringer based out of LA, and Sarah Scott, an associate podcast producer in Sydney. In this episode, they join Tilo to explore what got them into podcasting, what’s keeping them excited at Spotify, and to share some advice for those considering a career in podcasting.
Our episodes might sound a bit different from now on - that’s because we’re mixing it up to bring you fresh new stories about what it’s like to work and learn at Spotify. Welcome to Life at Spotify: The Podcast!
Have you ever wondered how Spotify enters new listening markets? Kossy walks us through her experience launching new markets all across Asia. She explains some of the most challenging parts and also reveals the most rewarding aspects of bringing music to different people all over the world.
Employee resource groups or ERGs play a big part of our culture at Spotify. Tune in to this one to learn about how these employee-led volunteer groups bring together minoritized individuals, create community, and foster belonging and allyship at Spotify. You’ll also learn how some ERGs have an impact on what you see and hear on Spotify!
There are different forms of advocacy in the workplace but in this episode, we dive deep into a specific type of advocacy where leaders invest in the career success of others that aren’t in senior-level roles. This is called sponsorship. Cherise shares her personal experiences with sponsorship at Spotify and throughout her career. As a bonus, you can expect to learn some tips on how to start your own sponsorship journey.
This summer we welcomed our first-ever virtual internship class and introduced a brand new intern program called The Opening Act Innovation Challenge. The Opening Act is a multifaceted experience for officially recognized Historically Black College & University (HBCU) and Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) students with a passion for tech and media. The Innovation Challenge was presented in the fall of last year and served as an opportunity for HBCU & HSI students to pitch solutions to a business problem at Spotify for the chance to win an internship. Winners of the challenges were invited to join the summer internship program and work on their challenge solution with Spotify teams. Join us as we tell you more about the program and introduce you to three Innovation Challenge winners & interns; Cameron Scott, Maryfer Mancilla Fernandez, and Terris Johnson.
On this episode, we talk to Michele Santucci who is the recorded music lead at Spotify. Michele sits within our content team and works with artists to make Spotify originals. What does that mean exactly? Well, Michele breaks it down for us and then talks to us about her 6+ years of experience working at Spotify. She gets specific about how while at Spotify she has identified opportunities and carved out specific roles for herself. Trust us, you don’t want to miss this one!
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, all of Spotify has been working from home since March 11th. For most of the company, the change happened overnight. We talked to three Spotifiers about adapting to working from home during these unprecedented times. Marcin, Maryem, and Mosca share how they’re personally adapting and the changes they’ve had to make to look after themselves or their teams. We discuss handling working and having children at home, mental health, supporting team members, and remembering to look after yourself to best be able to look after your team.
Each year, we host an annual hack week where Spotifiers around the globe have one week to work on projects outside of their normal day to day roles. On this episode you get to hear Jacob’s hack week story. Jacob is a product marketing lead who, along with his team, was able to take an idea and actually turn it into a feature that exists on Spotify today. Listen to the episode now to learn what the feature is and to get an inside look into hack week at Spotify.
Finally, we’re kicking off season 2 of the The GreenRoom and couldn’t be more excited to start with an episode that’s a bit personal. Press the play button to hear your hosts, Mal and Gus, talk about their unique career journeys which led them to the cool roles they now have at Spotify. Would they change anything along the way or do they have any regrets? Tune in to find out and learn more about what you can expect from season 2 of The GreenRoom!
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Meet our Heart & Soul team. They’re working to create a safe, stigma-free environment where there is support, acceptance, and sensibility around mental health and mental health issues. Listen in as we speak to the team lead, Linn, and ambassadors in a few offices around the globe. Jade, Jake, and Maddie open up and share details about their personal experiences and why the work they do with Heart & Soul is so important to them.
Summer internships are awesome for a number of reasons. Students get to spend time learning new skills, expanding their networks, and working on cool stuff. Tune in to this episode to learn about our summer internship program. You’ll hear from one of our campus team members, Hannah, plus 4 interns: Yodit, Eric, Shanta and Mfoniso. Interested in an internship? Then this episode is for you.
What started as a grassroots initiative by Spotifiers 5 years ago has evolved into our annual Inclusion Summit. You’ll hear from one of our Diversity & Belonging leads, Cassi, as he talks about what we hope to gain from doing this each year. Keep listening to hear first hand accounts from one internal speaker, Zephyr, and two attendees, Channa and Raul, as we dive into what the Inclusion Summit is and why it’s important to us!
Join Mallory as she speaks with three incredible parents and learns more about their experiences with parental leave, getting ready for a new baby and managing priorities once you have a little one at home. Special shout out to Adrian, Lily, and Kate for sharing some of their very personal stories on this episode. And make sure to listen through to the end to hear a quick check-in from co-host, Gus, who was on parental leave when this was recorded!
What is the Tech Learning Team and how do they work at Spotify? Join Gus and Mallory as they sit down with the Alex, the TLT lead, to understand how the team came to fruition and then get a chance to hear from Saakshi, who has taken part in one of the programs. What does Saakshi do now at Spotify and how has it changed her career.
Ever wondered what it’s like to work at Spotify during the day but moonlight as a DJ in your spare time? Listen in as Gus and Mallory get the chance to speak with the founders and creators of the NYC and STO DJ clubs. Understand how Aimee, Kerri and Matt are sharing knowledge with fellow music lovers and fostering a DJ community within the larger company.
In this episode Gus and Mallory speak with three Spotifiers that only recently joined the band. Katie, Asa and Mike are not only based in different offices but in different countries and teams! Learn more about their on-boarding journey and how they came to find themselves at Spotify.