Worst Manager I've Ever Had - Software Engineer Spotify Employee Review

1.0
Aug 6, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some of the internal tooling was fun to play around with if you're a music nerd.

Cons

Working at Spotify was easily the nadir of my career. My manager basically ignored all input from everyone on the team, and didn't do much of anything in terms of providing technical leadership, or helping me with my career growth. He clearly didn't care about how long projects took to complete. Ultimately, he retaliated against myself and two other members of my team after we submitted negative feedback about him during a performance review. Spotify does just about everything possible to allow managers to retaliate against their direct reports. Feedback is not anonymized or obfuscated at all, and managers are able to read their feedback from their direct reports before writing evaluations for their direct reports. Overall Spotify seems like it has a broad spectrum of experiences. Some teams and some managers are presumably great, and you would never have a problem with them. However, the bad managers are very bad, and they're not going anywhere. My advice for anyone thinking of accepting a position here is to make sure you know who you would be reporting to, and how they run their team. If you can, try to get some input from the ICs on that team as well.

Explore other reviews about Spotify

5.0
Jan 25, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great company with good name recognition

Cons

Pay isn’t comparable to other tech companies

1.0
Mar 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The global footprint and tech concerns that comes with the large user base are interesting. Lots of talented engineers. 23+5 paid days off in the US.

Cons

The culture is far from what it used to be. It used to be exciting, encouraging, can-do attitude and agile. Today, it's all top-down, employees have no say, there are no growth paths, full waterfall process, leaders breathing down your neck all the time. Compliancy to meaningless bureaucratic processes is more important than focusing on the work itself. There is no trust that people will do a great job. Top leaders do not listen or care about the employees, great and reasonable ideas are constantly squashed. The fear-based leadership style is prevalent. HR is completely disconnected from all of this and the work on the ground. Compensation is below market average with the excuse that people should stay for the cause and not the money.

1
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All