Leaving Spotify

MP hoodie

Today is my third anniversary at Spotify. It has been an amazing adventure and a time that I will treasure, but it is time for me to move on.

Why does someone leave a job? When I talk about this with people I’m mentoring, we’ll talk about a bad manager, a lack of challenge or a lack of opportunity.  These are a failure of the manager and the company, a symptom of a larger issue to be addressed.

Sometimes though, it is just time for the person to move on to a new challenge or a new environment to continue their growth towards their own professional goals. Three years ago, I left Adobe for this reason. In a couple weeks, I will leave Spotify for this reason as well.

I was originally attracted to Spotify because of the product and the space, but I was far more excited about the culture and the way deep way Spotify approached building an engineering organization.

I came to learn more than to lead; and I’ve learned a tremendous amount in my time at Spotify. I’ve learned about being thoughtful around your company’s culture. I’ve learned about preserving and protecting that culture during rapid growth. I’ve learned about how to build a fail-safe organization. I’ve learned new ways creating a culture of autonomy and accountability.  I’ve learned how to lead in a multi-cultural organization when you are not part of the dominant culture. I’ve learned how true data-driven and lean product development can work. I’ve seen what a true continuous improvement culture is like. My time at Spotify has been like an MBA course in technical leadership, and for that I will always be grateful.

That isn’t to say Spotify is perfect in all these regards. It isn’t. Helping the company overcome its challenges and continue to improve in these and other areas has been also a valuable learning experience.

Spotify still has exciting challenges and interesting work, but I’ve realized that the lessons I would learn if I stayed aren’t the most valuable ones for me to learn for the next stage of my career.

I will be joining Avvo, as it’s new Chief Technical Officer, in June. It’s a very different business and product in some ways than Spotify, but what I really liked about the company is that many of the core values are similar. I’ve also been impressed by the leadership team, the opportunity, and by the developers I’ve met.

It will be hard to leave Spotify and Sweden. I have loved my time here. I do look forward now to my new role and new challenges. I will continue to write and talk about them as I can.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to join me on this new adventure, Avvo is hiring! If you are more interested in replacing me at Spotify, that job is posted here.

I’ve included my goodbye mail to Spotify below:

Three years ago, I joined Spotify. I didn’t join because I was excited about the product. I joined because I was excited about Spotify’s culture and the deliberate way that the company approached it. Don’t get me wrong, I am a massive music fan and have been all my life. Back then though streaming music as a subscription business was still relatively nascent, especially in the US; and Spotify was not yet a clear leader even amongst the streaming companies that existed.

 I came to Spotify because I was tired of trying to create environments that supported true agile development, team autonomy and lean practices where I worked. I wanted to just live in that world instead of being the agent of change. I thought I had found my paradise, and I had.

If you’ve ever heard me give a talk about Spotify, it may sound like I’m talking more about the ideal than the reality. This is true; Spotify doesn’t uniformly live up to its ideals of how it should work. What I love about Spotify though is that it never stops striving to become a better version of itself. That comes not just from Daniel, or Oskar, but also from everywhere in the organization. I’ve never seen an environment where people are so empowered to improve the way that they work.

While I have done my best to use my experience to support and to teach, I came just as much to learn; and you have all taught me a great deal. For that, I am incredibly appreciative to each and every one of you. Especially those that have challenged me, questioned me, or even just asked me to explain what the heck I meant when I said something.

For all this learning and improving, we have done some amazing things together in this time. Spotify is now the undisputed leader in streaming music. We have long passed the Deezers, the RDIOs (RIP), and the Pandoras. We are credible leaders and fending off three of the largest companies in the world. I have been so lucky to have been able to contribute, in any way, to Spotify’s success. For that I will always be proud and grateful.

Now it is time for me to move on to new challenges, to learn new lessons. I hope that I can take what I have learned and apply it in a new place. If I can create something half as special as Spotify, I will consider myself incredibly successful. 

For those of you I’ve been lucky enough to interact with, again, I thank you, and I will miss spending my days working with you. For those of you I haven’t had a chance to work with, it will always be my loss. For all of you, take advantage of the wonderful gift you have been given. Give as much as you can to each other, and learn as much from each other as you can. You will work other places someday, but you will always treasure this time, in this place. Above all, protect the culture and environment that you have created. Nurture it, adapt it, develop it, and keep it strong as the organization grows. 

My last day at Spotify will be June 3rd, after which I’ll be returning to Seattle to take on the CTO role at Avvo. If you visit Seattle, ping me. I’ll always be up for a Fika; and can show you what a real coffee-driven society is like 🙂

 

6 thoughts on “Leaving Spotify”

  1. Kevin,
    You’re one of the spotifiers I’ve liked a little extra. Can’t really tell why but I guess it’s your nice personality along with a super professional approach to things at work. Even though we haven’t worked together much I will miss you a lot. Congrats to Avvo who just hired a great person!

    Take care, Kevin! <3

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