Spotify

Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Policy & Safety

Spotify$227K — $324K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Experience building and shipping production-grade machine learning systems at scale
  • Strong expertise in ML evaluation, including dataset design and model performance monitoring
  • Familiarity with multimodal machine learning systems (text, audio, image, video)
  • Experience with human-in-the-loop systems or feedback-driven model improvement
  • Ability to translate complex requirements into technical solutions, including regulatory or policy constraints
  • Experience influencing technical direction in large-scale systems
  • Ability to navigate ambiguity and balance speed, quality, and risk
  • Excellent communication skills for collaboration with technical and non-technical stakeholders

Responsibilities

  • Build and scale machine learning systems for proactive content detection and safety scanning
  • Design and implement policy evaluation frameworks with continuous improvement
  • Develop multimodal models for safety and policy enforcement
  • Create feedback loops to improve model performance based on human reviewer input
  • Translate regulatory requirements into scalable ML system designs
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure safe user experiences
  • Drive technical decisions in ambiguous problem spaces and contribute to platform architecture
  • Mentor and support other machine learning engineers

Benefits

  • Health insurance
  • Six-month paid parental leave
  • 401(k) retirement plan
  • Monthly meal allowance
  • 23 paid days off
  • 13 paid flexible holidays
  • Paid sick leave
Full Job Description
About the Team
The Policy & Safety team sits within the Content Platform domain and builds the systems that keep Spotify safe and trustworthy at scale. We own the infrastructure behind content moderation, including detection models, policy enforcement systems, compliance pipelines, and the safety-by-default platform.

Our work sits on the critical path of every new content type and product experience-from messaging and comments to collaborative and agentic features. We partner closely with Trust & Safety, Legal, and Public Affairs to ensure that as Spotify evolves, safety is built in from the start-not added later.

What You Will Do

  • Build and scale machine learning systems for proactive content detection, classification, and pre-publish safety scanning
  • Design and implement policy evaluation frameworks, including standardized datasets, offline and online metrics, and continuous improvement loops
  • Develop multimodal models that combine text, audio, image, and video signals for safety and policy enforcement
  • Architect feedback loops that turn human reviewer input into structured training data for continuous model improvement
  • Translate regulatory requirements (e.g., precision/recall obligations, compliance reporting) into scalable ML system designs
  • Partner with cross-functional teams across Trust & Safety, Legal, Public Affairs, and Product to deliver safe user experiences
  • Drive technical direction in ambiguous problem spaces and contribute to long-term platform architecture
  • Mentor and support other machine learning engineers, helping raise the bar across the team


Who You Are

  • You have experience building and shipping production-grade machine learning systems at scale
  • You have strong expertise in ML evaluation, including dataset design, metrics, and model performance monitoring
  • You have worked with multimodal machine learning systems across text, audio, image, or video domains
  • You are experienced with human-in-the-loop systems, active learning, or feedback-driven model improvement
  • You are comfortable translating complex requirements into technical solutions, including regulatory or policy constraints
  • You have experience working across teams and influencing technical direction in large-scale systems
  • You are comfortable navigating ambiguity and making thoughtful decisions that balance speed, quality, and risk
  • You communicate clearly and collaborate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders


Where You Will Be

  • This role is based in New York, NY
  • 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.


The United States base range for this position is 227,495-324,993 USD, plus equity. The benefits available for this position include health insurance, six-month paid parental leave, 401(k) retirement plan, monthly meal allowance, 23 paid days off, 13 paid flexible holidays, and paid sick leave. These ranges may be modified in the future.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us. Find our AI notice here: https://lifeatspotify.com/ai-notice

About Spotify

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider, launched in October 2008. The platform is owned by Spotify AB, a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange since April 2018. Spotify's primary business is providing an audio streaming platform, with the company claiming that it had 345 million active monthly users and 155 million paying subscribers as of December 2020. Unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artist streams as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Spotify has faced criticism from artists and producers including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who have argued that it does not fairly compensate musicians. Spotify has also faced criticism from artists and producers including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who have argued that it does not fairly compensate musicians.
Learn more about Spotify
Size
3,456 employees
Industry
Founded
2006

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