From Desk Neighbor to Staff Engineer: A Day in Anna Smith’s Life at Spotify
Anna Smith joined Spotify’s New York office three years ago, and recently moved up to Staff Engineer. She works on the Babka team, which manages non-royalty-bearing stream counts that are shared externally. That means controlling the data flowing into Spotify for Artists, Spotify Analytics, the play count in the Spotify client, and some of the data sent to record labels.
Morning: Stand-ups and Database Design
Smith starts her day with a quick workout—a run, weights, or a walk with her rescue dog Mari—before heading into the office. Once she’s in, the first thing on her agenda is checking her schedule for the day.
At 10:15 am, she joins her team’s daily stand-up. The current focus there is building a database that will serve Spotify’s artist analytics much more dynamically. Existing data is pre-aggregated, so artists get instant, static dashboards. The shift is toward introducing some latency to give users more flexibility in exactly what data they see.
“We have many types of users with different rights to metrics on how content is consumed,” Smith notes. “Given that rights change over time and users flow between groups, we want to be sure we’re only showing users the data that makes sense for them.”
The project is about building a large, performant database that meets these access requirements. Right now, the team is pushing out all the datasets and making them available to the right people; the next phase will focus on system reliability.
Morning: Provider APIs and Inbox Management
Later in the morning, work shifts to ‘provider APIs’—the data sent to record labels. In the past, label employees emailed engineers directly with technical issues and feasibility questions. Spotify has since hired a technical account manager to handle the inbox, so Smith and her team spend a few minutes each morning reviewing what’s come in and planning their responses.
Afternoon: Mentorship and Fewer Meetings
Lunch is often a desk affair, although Smith’s team has a habit of eating together around 12:15 pm. She describes herself as close to the whole team and appreciates her manager’s support, noting how much they push her to do her best.
Afternoons are lighter on meetings, which frees time for other responsibilities, including mentorship. Smith currently mentors two other engineers—one informally and one through Spotify’s official program for promising engineers who have been overlooked by the industry. Having been mentored herself, she values how it connects her with colleagues from across the office she might otherwise never meet.
When she does get a spare moment, the office’s arcade room is a good option. She also belongs to a Spotify Dungeons & Dragons group that convenes every few months for pizza and building elaborate dioramas of their play sessions.
