Research Scientist

About This Role

This Research Scientist role focuses on advancing the state of the art in machine learning and AI to shape the future of personalization within the company's Personalization organization. You will conduct original research, develop novel methodologies, and collaborate with cross-functional partners to translate insights into product opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Conduct original research in machine learning and AI, with a focus on large-scale foundation models, generative AI, and post-training methods, including reinforcement learning
• Develop novel methodologies, models, and evaluation frameworks to advance personalization systems
• Design and execute rigorous experiments to explore new ideas and validate research hypotheses
• Contribute to the scientific community through publications, talks, and conference participation
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners to translate research insights into long-term product opportunities
• Help define and evolve a forward-looking research agenda aligned with Spotify
• Mentor others and contribute to a strong, curious, and collaborative research culture

Requirements

• Master

’s or PhD in machine learning, AI, or a related field, or equivalent research experience

• Demonstrated expertise in machine learning and artificial intelligence through peer-reviewed publications at conferences such as NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, KDD, or RecSys
• Deep knowledge of machine learning, with hands-on experience in areas such as post-training and reinforcement learning for large models, reward design, large-scale distributed training, or evaluation of model behavior
• Experienced in designing experiments and working with real-world datasets to validate research ideas
• Care about advancing understanding of user behavior and improving experiences across music and talk content
• Bring curiosity, creativity, and a thoughtful approach to solving complex, open-ended problems
• Value collaboration and actively seek diverse perspectives in your work

Benefits

• Extensive learning opportunities, through our dedicated team, GreenHouse
• Flexible share incentives letting you choose how you share in our success
• Global parental leave, six months off - fully paid - for all new parents
• All The Feels, our employee assistance program and self-care hub
• Flexible public holidays, swap days off according to your values and beliefs