Director, Machine Learning Engineering - Surfaces Foundation

Spotify • New York, NY

1d • Remote

About The Position

Spotify’s Surfaces Foundation team builds the systems that power how personalized recommendations show up for hundreds of millions of listeners. From targeting and configuration to serving and evaluation, this team sits at the intersection of machine learning infrastructure and product experience. You’ll lead a group shaping how AI-driven recommendations evolve across every Spotify surface, helping teams move faster while keeping a strong, shared foundation.

Requirements

• Experience building and operating machine learning systems at scale in consumer-facing products
• Worked on recommendation systems, ranking, or content delivery platforms and understand end-to-end ML workflows
• Strong platform thinking, with the ability to decide when to build shared capabilities and when to keep solutions closer to product teams
• Comfortable working with modern AI tools and understand how they influence software development practices
• Led teams through change, supporting adoption of new technologies or ways of working
• Collaborate effectively across disciplines and help create alignment across teams with different priorities
• Care about building inclusive, supportive team environments and invest in the growth of others
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and making decisions that balance short-term needs with long-term impact

Responsibilities

• Lead and support engineering managers and their teams building platform systems for personalized recommendations across Spotify
• Set and evolve the technical vision for foundational capabilities, including targeting, serving, evaluation, and agent-driven systems
• Make thoughtful decisions about what should become platform capabilities, ensuring teams can move quickly without unnecessary complexity
• Guide incremental platform evolution, enabling continuous delivery rather than large, disruptive rewrites
• Partner closely with product, data science, and engineering leaders to align priorities across multiple squads
• Stay close to the technology when needed, contributing to architecture decisions and resolving complex production challenges
• Encourage adoption of AI-assisted development tools and shape how teams use them effectively in day-to-day work
• Hire, develop, and grow engineering leaders and individual contributors, building a strong and inclusive team culture

Benefits

• health insurance
• six month paid parental leave
• 401(k) retirement plan
• monthly meal allowance
• 23 paid days off
• 13 paid flexible holidays
• paid sick leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed