Working in a fast growing company

Kristian Karl, Spotify

1983 Started programming1994 Testing and automation @Ercisson1998 Consultant2010 Test Manager @Spotify

●Subscribers: Over 30 million●Active users: Over 80 million●Revenue paid to rightsholders: $3bn●Number of songs: Over 30 million●Number of playlists: Over 1.5 billion●Available in 58 markets

Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, New Zealand, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, Uruguay and USA.

Fun Facts

Åsa Ranneby - Chapter Lead

Technology Produc

tDesign

The Chapter Lead Responsibilities

INDIVIDUALMake sure the

individuals are in a good place, have what they need to deliver great stuff

and that they continuously grow

both skills and behaviors.

HR STUFFMake sure that we

are fulfilling our responsibilities as an employer and

that each individual is getting the support and

compensation they should have.

SquadMake sure the

squads have what they need to do great things and

help them improve their ways to be

functioning as high performing squads.

STAFFING & HIRING

Make sure that we have the right

staffing and that the hiring process is

working like clockwork and doing the right

thing.

CHAPTERMake sure we share knowledge within and outside the

chapter and that we support each other in our growth and

daily work.

ORGANIZATIONMake sure we are

following our company values

and that we always improve our way of working in the org

and grows our leadership skills.

I give regular

feedback and I am happy to receive it

My actions inspire trust

I am clear and open and not afraid to speak my

mind

I give my squads

space to grow and

solve problems

I help create an

environment that

encourages development

and innovation

●Make sure the individuals are in a good place.

●Have what they need to deliver great stuff.

●That they continuously grow both skills and behaviors

Supporting the IndividualThe goal is that the individual should:

Things I do

Receive good feedback that supports their growth

Be empowered in the workplace

Have a clear view of the expectations on them

Have the right skills and challenges, and the right workload

Have a development plan aligned with their career path

Be coached to grow at a sustainable pace

Delivering value to Spotify, and enjoy doing that

Have a clear picture of where the company is going and why

I work in the squadsAttend standups, planning and retrospects

Coaching

Participate in POCLAC

Weekly 1:1s

Fika!

●Make sure the squads have what they need to do great stuff.

●Help them improve their way of working to be functioning as high performing squads

Supporting the SquadsThe goal is that the squad should:

Have a good feedback culture

Feel empowered to take the necessary decisions

Feel ownership of their stuff, and know what is expected

Deliver great stuff, enjoy working and collaborating on their things Continuously improve the

quality and state of their systems and their way of working

Have a clear view of where we are going and why

Have the right competence and size to do the work and actively work on sharing knowledge in the squad

Attend standups and planning (overlap AC)Attend roadmap sessions (overlap PO) Help

prepare/facilitate offsites, planning, roadmap sessions, ...

Attend/facilitate retros (overlap AC)

Make sure we have the right staffing for the holidays and on call

Drive initiatives in the org to improve the working environment for the squad

Work in the POCLAC to make sure the squad has what it needs to be high performingThings I

do

Enabling Chapter Collaboration

●Make sure we share knowledge within and outside the chapter.

●Make sure we support each other in our growth and daily work.

The goal is that the chapter members should:

Get help and to learn from each other by opportunity to discuss engineering problems and practicesIncrease collaboration between squads in the daily work by knowing each other in the chapter

Get inspired around things and ways to learn more like new technologies conferences, trainings

Drive initiatives in the company to make sure we are having the right architecture, platform, engineering practices

Increase and share knowledge and good practices in the chapter

Chapter meetings

Arrange lunch & learns and tech talks

Initiate/drive stuff like test conferencesShare information about company stuff (email, fikas, …)

Things I do

The HR Stuff●Make sure that we are

fulfilling our responsibilities as an employer

●Make sure that each individual is getting the support and compensation they should have

The goal is that the individual should:Get expenses and vacation approved (or being authorized to approve them themselves)Get on-call reports approved (or being authorized to approve them themselves)Get equipment approved (or being authorized to approve them themselves)

Get answers to questions regarding their employment, rules, compensation, ...

Have the right contract, amendments, job title and step

Have the right compensation

Have the right working environment (working hours, on-call setup, ...)

Onboarding/offboarding

Salary reviewApprove expenses, vacation, on-call, equipment, ...

Make sure we have enough staffing during holidays

Search for answers to different questionsAdjust steps, job title and contracts when needed

Drive improvement issues regarding working environment like on-call setup

Things I do

Staffing & Hiring

●Make sure that we have the right staffing.

●Make sure that the hiring process is working and doing the right thing

The goal is that the organization should:

Have an interview process that checks for the right things as unbiased as possible

Have a hiring pipeline that consists of good and diverse candidates

Have a hiring pipeline that moves at the right speed

Spend the right amount of time in interviews in relation to the work in the squads

Have good profile descriptions for the open headcountsContinuously evaluate the hiring process to learn and improve

Have the right amount of trained interviewers conducting interviews

Have the right staffing according to the needs

Keep track on pipelineRouting candidates to right rolesHelp sourcing for candidatesDoing 1st interviews

Do culture part and shadow 2nd interviews

Prepare interviews (2nd and onsite)Make sure we have enough trained interviewers

Drive initiative to design a new tech interview

Participate in onsites (do cultural)

Drive improvements of the hiring process, make sure we are diversity friendly

Work with staffing together with pal and POCLACs

Things I do

Supporting the Organization

● Make sure we are following our company values.

●Make sure that we always improve our way of working in the org and grows our leadership skills

The goal is that the organization should:

Remove impediments that prevents us from doing great stuff in a great way

Uphold the culture of empowerment, transparency and trust

Have great leaders going in the same direction

Make sure everyone in the tribe knows where we are going and why

Make sure we are and continue to be a great place to workMake sure we are sharing knowledge and practices within and outside of the tribeContinuously improve the way we work and support the members of the tribe in their improvements

Active participation in lead meetings of the tribe (and emails)

Supporting other leads including mentoring

Active participation in my tribe leads offsites

Initiate, drive and participate in initiatives like better on-call

Drive changes in org when needed

Share knowledge and practices that I use, to others

Things I do

References

● https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-engineering-culture-part-1/● https://labs.spotify.com/2014/09/20/spotify-engineering-culture-part-2/● https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1018963/Articles/SpotifyScaling.pdf

Q&A