Senior Applied Research Engineer - Media Quality

Spotify

London, GB

On-site

Who this role is best for

Aimed at senior engineers with expertise in both audio and video processing, working in media quality enhancement across diverse platforms.

Best fit for

Engineers who bridge research rigor with production-scale implementation.
— “solving product problems with research discipline: structured experiments, solid metrics, and evidence-based decisions, in a real production environment”
Specialists in end-to-end media pipeline optimization.
— “work across the full media pipeline—from backend processing such as ingestion, encoding, and delivery to frontend playback, buffering, and synchronization”

Things to consider

Role requires balancing technical depth with user experience focus.
— “turn deep technical understanding into scalable capabilities”
Expect to work across both audio and video domains.
— “brings deep research expertise and strong engineering skills across both audio and video”

How to stand out

Demonstrate quantifiable impact of past media quality improvements.
— “structured experiments, solid metrics, and evidence-based decisions”
Showcase projects where you translated research into production systems.
— “solving product problems with research discipline”
Highlight cross-platform optimization experience in your portfolio.
— “ensure a consistent, high-quality experience for hundreds of millions of users across devices and platforms”

Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Senior

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

improved media quality metrics
enhanced user experience

Typical background

PhD in Computer Science or related fieldexperience in media processing

Skills & requirements

Required

Audio ProcessingVideo ProcessingMachine LearningData AnalysisResearch Methodology

Preferred

Signal ProcessingNeural Networks

About the role

Original posting from Spotify via Lever

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.
We are looking for a Senior Applied Research Engineer who brings deep research expertise and strong engineering skills across both audio and video. In this role, you will help advance how Spotify understands, evaluates, and improves media experiences across platforms. You’ll work across the full media pipeline—from backend processing such as ingestion, encoding, and delivery to frontend playback, buffering, and synchronization—solving product problems with research discipline: structured experiments, solid metrics, and evidence-based decisions, in a real production environment.
You’ll join a team working at the intersection of media quality, perception, and engineering. The team builds applied solutions that improve how audio and video experiences perform across Spotify. By turning deep technical understanding into scalable capabilities, they help ensure a consistent, high-quality experience for hundreds of millions of users across devices and platforms.

Source: Spotify careers (Lever)