Senior Software Engineer (low level Video Experience)

We think this is a rare opportunity to be part of Spotify's groundbreaking journey as we evolve from an audio-first platform to also become a world-class video service. We're not just building features; we're creating a best-in-class video experience to rival the biggest players, like YouTube or TikTok. From offline playback to adaptive streaming with optimized video quality, you will be part of a team that defines how video will be consumed by hundreds of millions Spotify users.

Our next challenge is to move more of our pre-render video pipeline, things like decoding, timing, synchronization and adaptive streaming from higher-level native integrations down into a performant, portable C++ stack. By driving this space alongside our existing players, you will shape the APIs, abstractions, and optimizations that make video on Spotify seamless everywhere: across iOS, Android, desktop, and beyond.

We think you have many years of solid hands-on experience with video in code, from transcoding, streaming, demuxing, to adaptive bitrate selection and presentation of frames and audio samples. With that type of background this is a very good opportunity to expand your impact to help us at Spotify drive innovation in a space that's becoming increasingly vital to our growth. Joining us now will enable you to greatly influence our journey and make a lasting impact for the years to come.

You will be joining an environment with a lot of collaboration, innovation and cross-functional teams that deliver seamless, high-quality video experiences. Your role is to provide the right APIs and implementations to allow all of those teams to serve a first class video experience every time. If you are ready to make an impact and push the boundaries of video technology, we would like to get in touch!

What You'll Do

• Be part of a dynamic team focusing on creating a world-class mobile video experience, optimized for low-bandwidth environments and seamless on-the-go usage.
• At Spotify, we champion the perfect blend of strategy, creativity, and hands-on coding to drive innovation and deliver exceptional user experiences.
• Being a technical leader means that you are actively coding (in C++ with Swift and/or Kotlin), writing easy to understand documents and presenting for larger groups and key leaders.
• Debug complex performance issues across operating systems, device types, and networks.
• Optimise Spotify’s AV stack by driving pre-render logic from platform-specific frameworks like AVFoundation and ExoPlayer into a cross-platform core to reduce duplication and increase consistency and device reach.
• Design and implement low-level C++ video components that handle decoding, synchronization, and adaptive playback with minimal overhead.
• Share expertise in low-level video systems, raising the bar across Spotify engineering.

Who You Are

• A seasoned professional with a proven track record in senior roles, bringing a wealth of expertise and leadership to the table.
• Passionate about coding and hands-on problem-solving, while actively shaping and driving key strategic decisions.
• Strong understanding of decoding, synchronization, adaptive bitrate streaming, and frame-level control.
• Over 8 years of deep, hands-on experience in the video playback domain.
• Experience with platform-level frameworks like VideoToolbox, MediaCodec, or AVFoundation internals and motivated to generalize that work into reusable C++ systems.
• A deep understanding of video streaming technologies, with expertise in delivery protocols and the nuances of modern streaming ecosystems.
• Passionate about building foundations that empower Spotify teams to scale video to hundreds of millions of users.

Where You'll Be

We are a distributed workforce enabling our band members to find a work mode that is best for them! For this role, it can be within the EMEA region in which we have a work location and is within working hours. We operate within the Central European and GMT time zones for collaboration and ask that all be located in that time zone. Prefer an office to work from home instead? Not a problem! We have plenty of options for your working preferences.

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.