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.

Recruiter screen followed by a technical screening. The tech screen was a mix of easy to medium LC questions chosen on the spot along with random JavaScript trivia. Interviewers were friendly and helpful, which I appreciated. That said, the process overall felt disjointed. The job I applied for changed titles midway through the process, which made things a bit confusing, and the internal misalignment was palpable. I followed up with the recruiter a week later and received a generic, canned rejection.

Phone screen, followed by onsite based on core Javascript concepts, system design, and values interview. Pretty standard overall, focus on STAR format answers for the values round. System design was more focused on frontend since I interviewed for an FE role.