How Spotify's Internship Program is Shaping Tomorrow's Innovators
At Spotify, we believe in the power of audio to inspire, inform, and connect people around the world, and we believe in the power of people, especially the next generation of talent who will drive our industry and society forward. That’s why our internship program is not just a stepping stone for early career professionals; it’s a vital part of our strategy to foster innovation, promote diversity, and allow Spotifiers to grow their career with us. Through our internship program we aim to build a stronger future for Spotify and the global audio community.
Strategic Recruitment for Meaningful Impact
In recent years, our recruitment strategy has evolved to meet the changing needs of our business. While we’ve reduced our on-site campus presence, we’ve leaned into strategic partnerships that align with our business objectives and support a diverse talent funnel. Every candidate, regardless of how they find us, goes through the same rigorous application and interview process, ensuring that we select the best talent to join our teams.
With the current economic situation it may at first seem logical to scale back early career investments, however we believe that investing in early career talent is not just the right thing to do – it’s critical to our business success. Therefore, we’ve chosen to keep our commitment to the next generation.
Future-proofing Your Business
A company’s strongest customer base often reflects the demographics of its own employees. If you have many employees in one age bracket you tend to have many highly engaged customers in that same range. It’s simple: it’s human nature to build products or offer services that you yourself want. Our internship program is designed with a clear mission: to create career-building opportunities that positively impact the lives of emerging professionals from all backgrounds, as well as allowing current employees to grow their career with us. We’re not just offering a Summer job; we’re providing an incubator for future leaders, where they can grow, learn, and contribute to real problems that shape how the world consumes audio. In exchange, they also help us understand future audiences. It’s a key component in future-proofing our business.
Driving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Our internship program plays a major role in Spotify’s broader Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. By fostering a diverse group of interns, we ensure that our workforce reflects the diversity of our global audience, bringing in fresh perspectives that are essential for innovation.
This year, we welcomed 86 interns to the Spotify offices. Our decision to return to in-person internships was driven by our belief in the value of face-to-face interaction, and its importance for building a professional network with fellow interns, teams and other Spotifiers. In-person engagement not only means learning the ropes of what it means to be part of a workplace but it also enriches the learning experience and helps our interns feel embedded in Spotify’s culture, cultivating a sense of belonging that’s crucial for their professional growth. After completing an internship with us, anyone moving into a full time role with us can then enjoy all aspects of the Work From Anywhere program.
Building a Pipeline for Future Talent
For us, success isn’t just about the number of interns we bring on board each year – it’s about the long-term impact of these opportunities. Our goal is to fill 75% or more of our full-time entry-level roles with former interns or early career professionals (ECPs) who have come through our program. This is where our growth pillar in our People Strategy comes into play, enabling us to cultivate a pipeline of top talents who resonate with Spotify’s culture, ways of working, and demonstrate the critical future skills needed to drive our business forward. By having an already vetted and onboarded pipeline of junior talent we allow for current employees to grow into more senior roles, backfilling them with former high quality, ready to go, interns. It helps us improve growth opportunities for current staff, shorten time to hire, reduce onboarding time substantially and increase the quality of our hires.
The program is designed and delivered by our Talent Acquisition and Learning and Development teams. The teams collaborate to select the right talent, and then to design a development journey including curated content to help quickly onboard interns, as well as help provide them with the knowledge and skills to succeed. By aligning internship opportunities with our workforce plan, we optimize the potential for interns to transition into full-time roles, ensuring that we’re not just filling positions, but nurturing careers.
Looking Ahead: What’s Next For The Spotify Internship Program?
At Spotify, we’re not just offering internships – we’re building careers. Our internship program is a key part of our talent strategy, designed to foster innovation, promote diversity, and build a stronger future for our company and the global audio industry.
To reach this point we thought about the steps we could take to ensure that our early career programs not only meet our business needs but also contribute to a more inclusive and diverse workforce, and how we could build a pipeline of proven future leaders who are ready to drive Spotify forward. And as we look to the future, we’re excited about the possibilities ahead. We’re committed to staying in touch with our former interns, proactively reaching out when full-time roles open. We’re also assessing our strategic partnerships and planning to get an earlier start on the recruitment process this year to continue attracting top talent. And in 2025 we’re aiming to provide more structure and business continuity to our other early opportunity programs inspired by the success of our internship program. Watch this space!
