Was asked to apply for a job by a recruiter outside Sweden who found me through LinkedIn. Seemed serious and told me it was for a Senior Software Developer role. I had a interview with a guy called Anton and we talked about my experience and what Spotify was looking for. Was sent to another interview with a HR chief in Stockholm. The woman I talked to stated that I didn't qualify for the Senior position even though Anton asked me to apply for it. So what was the purpose of this process anyway? Then she ask me if I can consider a junior role even though I am a Software Engineer Lead today. What an insult! This is my second experience from Spotify HR and it sucks! Will never even consider them again even if they begged me on their knees with a 100K paycheck.

When I applied to Spotify, I already had an offer from another company. I communicated this upfront and asked the recruiters to move the process as quickly as possible so my existing offer would not expire. I was told the process normally takes 3 weeks and that they would try to complete it in 2. In reality, it took far longer. The process was repeatedly delayed. The recruiters were based in Singapore, which resulted in ~24h delays between each email. Additional days were lost due to technical issues with the scheduling platform. The company also had a “wellbeing week,” during which no interviews took place. I was never informed that this would delay the process by another full week. Despite performing very well in all interview rounds, I then heard nothing for nearly 2 more weeks. When I followed up—5 weeks after the process started—I was rejected. The explicit reason given was that I was “in a hurry.” I find this treatment of candidates unacceptable and highly unprofessional. I was transparent from the beginning about my limited availability (1–2 weeks), yet after 5 weeks of delays I was rejected for the very constraint I had communicated upfront. Given my strong interview performance and how closely my experience aligned with the role, I am confident I would have received an offer if not for the poorly managed timeline. Overall, this was a deeply disappointing experience. I invested many stressful hours in preparation and interviews, only to be rejected due to process inefficiencies rather than merit. This experience has significantly harmed my perception of Spotify as an employer.