Director, Machine Learning Engineering – Surfaces Foundation

Spotify

Director leading machine learning engineering for personalized recommendations at Spotify. Shaping AI-driven recommendations and building a strong engineering team culture.

Posted 4/29/2026full-timeRemote • 🇬🇧 United KingdomLeadWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

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

Requirements

What you’ll need

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

Benefits

Comp & perks

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.

ATS Keywords

✓ Tailor your resume

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools

machine learning systemsrecommendation systemsrankingcontent delivery platformsend-to-end ML workflowsplatform capabilitiesAI-assisted development toolsarchitecture decisionscontinuous deliverysoftware development practices

Soft Skills

leadershipcollaborationdecision makingteam buildinginclusive culturesupporting growthnavigating ambiguityalignment across teamsadaptabilitycommunication