What Do Spotify Employees Do?

What do 10,000 employees at Spotify do? I saw recently that Spotify laid off 15% of their employees, which was 1500 people. What do 10,000 people do at a company like that? I obviously only see a finished product that is always functioning, so I'm genuinely curious why it takes so many people to keep it going! I worked at Spotify specifically in the Media Movement division. We were until we got laid off a 15 person team that dealt with the design, function, and continuous optimization of the Rewind and Forward buttons. For instance, when you would skip forward previously it was laggy and would sort of jitter. My team was responsible for writing a complete new JavaScript framework that allowed for losses fast-forwarding and rewind (what we refer to as GoUp and GoBack internally). It took a whole division of 15 people for just 2 buttons? I honestly have no idea how code writing works but it takes that long for a full time crew dedicated just to that? I honestly have no idea how code writing works To answer your question: yes. It's not just 2 buttons. It's the API calls underneath it. It's implementing it across multiple devices, platforms, and interfaces. It's integration software across multiple teams. I think people kind of underestimate the challenge of operating these kinds of distributed systems at scales where you have millions of daily users. Yes, it's super easy to write a client that can do this. It's a lot harder when you have to keep optimizing everything for user retention and efficient data flows. It's also core to the product. Spotify could potentially lose millions of dollars in subscription dollars if their experience is anything less than flawless. Dedicating that many resources to that team makes a bit more sense if you look at the real stakes of that interaction.

Скриншот обсуждения на Reddit о том, зачем Spotify нужны тысячи сотрудников. Один комментатор шутит, что целая команда из 15 человек занималась кнопками перемотки, а следующие комментарии объясняют, что за простыми кнопками стоят сложные API, интеграции и распределённые системы. Шутка высмеивает недооценку работы разработчиков и одновременно показывает, почему крупным сервисам нужны большие команды. EN: A Reddit discussion about why Spotify needs thousands of employees. One commenter jokes that an entire team of 15 people worked on the rewind and forward buttons, while later comments explain that complex APIs, integrations, and distributed systems operate behind simple buttons. The joke mocks how people underestimate software engineering while also showing why large services need large teams.

• @ithueti / 11135 2023-12-08