SpotifySenior Manager, User Research - Core Experience
We design Spotify’s consumer experience—end to end, moment to moment, across every screen, platform, and partner integration. Our mission is to make listening feel effortless, personal, and joyful for billions of users around the world. That means turning complexity into clarity across hundreds of touchpoints—from our mobile and desktop apps to the smart speakers, TVs, cars, and integrations where Spotify shows up every day. If it touches a consumer, we shape it. We bring deep insight into human behavior, design, and technology to craft experiences that feel intuitive, expressive, and unmistakably Spotify.
The Core Experience team shapes the mobile app used by millions of listeners every day. This is where discovery, playback, personalization, and everyday listening come together. As part of Experience Design, User Research plays a critical role in ensuring we deeply understand the people behind the streams — and turn those insights into clear product and design decisions.
We’re looking for a Senior Manager to lead a team of User Researchers focused on Spotify’s core mobile experience. You’ll guide strategy, elevate craft, and ensure research meaningfully shapes some of the most visible and complex product work at Spotify. This is a pivotal moment for the discipline as AI reshapes how research is conducted and applied — and we’re looking for a leader who can help us navigate that shift thoughtfully and responsibly.
What You’ll Do
- Lead and develop a team of User Researchers setting clear direction, coaching and supporting their career development, and collaborating with with your fellow UR leads on our discipline’s strategy
- Define and drive the user research strategic agenda for the studio by identifying the most important knowledge gaps, prioritizing work in partnership with Design and Product leaders, and ensuring research is connected to the decisions that matter most
- Co-create user experience and product strategy with senior stakeholders across the studio, translating user insights into strategic recommendations that influence company/strategic-level decisions
- Act as a senior partner to Design, Product, and Data Science leads building strong collaborative relationships at all levels and representing user needs with clarity and conviction, supporting your team in doing the same
- Lead the team's approach to AI-augmented research: model what excellent orchestration of AI tools looks like, guide the team through responsible adoption across the research workflow, and hold the line on the quality and trust standards that keep our work credible
- Steward a high bar for user research craft ensuring the team's output is timely, trustworthy, and genuinely impactful, not just fast
- Drive the communication and activation of foundational insights, including how findings are structured to be discoverable and usable by both human and AI stakeholders
- Partner with User Research leads across the Mission on shared strategy, standards, tooling, and discipline development
Who You Are
- An experienced people manager with a strong user researcher background, you know what excellent research looks like and you know how to help others get there
- You can co-create a research roadmap tied to product initiatives, translate ambiguous problem spaces into clear research questions, and connect findings to strategic decisions with confidence
- You understand how AI is transforming user research workflows and what it means for the discipline's identity and value. You’re active in leading your current team through this encouraging experimentation, moving tools from exploration to standardization thoughtfully, all while maintaining and honing your and their human judgment
- You’re a master of your craft with a broad and deep methodology range, strong judgment about when to go fast and when to go deep, and a track record of research that has moved the needle on real decisions
- You can tell a story that lands regardless of the audience, from a product team to a senior leadership forum, and in artifacts that live in an AI-accessible knowledge environment
- You invest in your people's growth, take team health seriously, and lead with transparency and trust
- You build buy-in, navigate competing priorities with grace, and are known as a collaborative and honest partner at every level of the organization
Where You'll Be
- This role is based in London or Stockholm.
- We offer you the flexibility to work where you work best! There will be some in person meetings, but still allows for flexibility to work from home.
Spotify is an equal opportunity employer. You are welcome at Spotify for who you are, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or what’s playing in your headphones. Our platform is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all thrive, contribute, and be forward-thinking! So bring us your personal experience, your perspectives, and your background. It’s in our differences that we will find the power to keep revolutionizing the way the world listens.
At Spotify, we are passionate about inclusivity and making sure our entire recruitment process is accessible to everyone. We have ways to request reasonable accommodations during the interview process and help assist in what you need. If you need accommodations at any stage of the application or interview process, please let us know - we’re here to support you in any way we can.
Spotify transformed music listening forever when we launched in 2008. Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the chance to enjoy and be passionate about these creators. Everything we do is driven by our love for music and podcasting. Today, we are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service.