NerdOut@Spotify

Latest Episodes:

08: Humans in the Loop Aug 25, 2022

Show notes

Get ready: we’re diving into machine learning. Hear how we’re improving personalization with reinforcement learning (RL), what makes ML engineering so different from other kinds of software engineering, and why machine learning at Spotify is really about humans on one side of an algorithm trying to better understand the humans on the other side of it.

Spotify’s director of research, Mounia Lalmas-Roelleke, talks with host Dave Zolotusky about how we’re using RL to optimize recommendations for future rewards, how listening to more diverse content relates to long-term satisfaction, how to teach machines about the difference between p-funk and g-funk, and the upsides of taking the stairs.

Then Dave goes deep into the everyday life of an ML engineer. He talks with senior staff engineer Joe Cauteruccio about what it takes to turn ML theory into code, the value of T-shapedness, the difference between inference errors and bugs, using proxy targets and developing your ML intuition, and why in machine learning something’s probably wrong if everything looks right.

Plus, an ML glossary: our guests educate us on the definitions for cold starts, bandits, and more. This episode is the first in a series about machine learning and personalization at Spotify.

Learn more about ML and personalization:

Recent publications from Spotify Research:

“Variational User Modeling with Slow and Fast Features” (Feb. 2022)
“Algorithmic Balancing of Familiarity, Similarity, & Discovery in Music Recommendations” (Nov. 2021)
“Leveraging Semantic Information to Facilitate the Discovery of Underserved Podcasts” (Nov. 2021)
“Shifting Consumption towards Diverse Content on Music Streaming Platforms” (Mar. 2021)

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng and on LinkedIn!

07: *Bonus!* Kelsey on How to Give a Great Talk Aug 11, 2022

Show notes

In this special bonus episode, Google’s Kelsey Hightower is back to tell us what separates a good talk from a great one, the importance of storytelling, and the pitfalls of relying too much on your demo.

For more Kelsey:

Listen to Ep.07: “Kelsey Hightower on Engineering Culture” (38 mins.)
Follow Kelsey on Twitter @kelseyhightower (DMs are open!)

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng and on LinkedIn!

07: Kelsey Hightower on Engineering Culture Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

The one and only Kelsey Hightower drops by the recording studios at Spotify’s global HQ in Stockholm to chat with host Dave Zolotusky about what it’s like being a software developer today: did it get harder or easier?

Hear Dave and Kelsey talk about what happens when tech becomes more accessible to more people, Kelsey’s role models and who he looks to for inspiration, when is the appropriate time to talk to your daughter about Docker containers, what comes after “move fast & break things”, what makes a good engineering culture — and how to recognize one when you’re interviewing. Plus, being a minimalist and how many pairs of pants do you really need.

Along with being a principal engineer and longtime developer advocate at Google Cloud, Kelsey is a legendary conference speaker, creator of Kubernetes The Hard Way, famous for never shying away from the hard topics on Twitter, mentor and role model to many, and one of the most respected voices in the engineering community today. We were very glad to nerd out with him.

You can find more Kelsey here:

@kelseyhightower on Twitter
Kubernetes The Hard Way
“From McDonald’s to Google: How Kelsey Hightower became one of the most respected people in cloud computing” by Tom Krazit (Protocol, October 2020)

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng and on LinkedIn!

06: Bits of Math at Scale Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

Our Audio Intelligence Lab built the world’s beefiest effects pedal using machine learning and Python. Say hello to Pedalboard, an open source framework for adding studio-quality effects to audio files — at a speed and scale well beyond the capabilities of the tools you’d normally find in a music studio.

Host and principal engineer Dave Zolotusky talks with Peter Sobot (@psobot — not a robot🤖), one of the ML engineers on the team that built Pedalboard. They discuss the world of audio effects processing in both music and ML research, how we use Pedalboard in our own research, Python as ML glue (with some secret C++ under the hood), and the unexpected use cases that appear whenever you open source your software.

Plus, a live programming demo…on a podcast? “Tap, tap, tap, return…”? How interesting can that be? Listen to find out!

Learn more about Pedalboard, open source, and ML and audio research at Spotify:

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng and on LinkedIn!

05: Advent of Code Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

What do coders do when they’re not coding for work? Sometimes they code for fun. (And sometimes they code for fun at work.) Hear why every December some of Spotify’s engineers become obsessed with the coding puzzles on Advent of Code, a website created in 2015 by an engineer named Eric Wastl.

Host and principal engineer Dave Zolotusky talks with Spotify’s chief architect and VP of engineering, Niklas Gustavsson (aka ngn), about competition and community, the utility of ugly hacks and garbage code, and how we can learn from play.

We also hear from Spotify engineers Sandra Dinsdale, Sophy Cao, and Tomas Aschan about who they’re really competing against, why they play, and why they can’t stop.

And lastly, Dave tries to find out the secrets to winning from the unbeatable Jimmy Mårdell — No. 35 on last year’s Advent of Code global leaderboard, the top player (by far) on Spotify’s internal leaderboard every year, and ngn’s nemesis (sort of).

We hope you enjoy this peek into one corner of Spotify’s engineering community and are inspired to join the global Advent of Code community in December. Until then, we leave you with this tweet from Advent of Code creator Eric Wastl (@ericwastl):

“If you're doing #AdventOfCode and learning stuff, but your code's a mess, you got the wrong answer, you're a few days behind, it took you several hours, you're in a language you're not familiar with…All I hear is that you're learning stuff. You're doing great!! 🌟❤️🎄🧑‍🎄”

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng

04: Backstage in the Wild Mar 16, 2022

Show notes

Spotify believes open source is one way big tech companies and the wider developer community can solve big tech problems together. So how’s that going? In this episode, you’ll hear from our friends at Netflix and American Airlines — both early adopters of Backstage, our open platform for building developer portals.

At first, streaming video services and an airline may seem like two very different kinds of software engineering organizations. But as you’ll hear, we all have a lot in common when it comes to managing increasingly complex tech ecosystems and helping our fellow developers build great products.

Host and Spotify principal engineer Dave Zolotusky talks with Laurie Barth & Brian Leathem, both engineers on Netflix’s Platform Experience & Design team (PXD), and with Melinda Malmgren, principal tech lead for American Airlines’s DevOps team.

You’ll hear them discuss using Backstage to build their own developer portals and improve developer experience, how big problems require federated solutions, open source and inner source (and open sourcing inner source — stick with us, it’ll all make sense when you listen), plenty of fiddly implementation details (if you’re into that sort of thing), plus Lego and the state of competitive gymnastics (naturally!).

Learn more about Backstage at Netflix, aka “Spotlight”:

Learn more about Backstage at American Airlines, aka “Runway”:

Learn more about Backstage at Spotify:

Or check out the links below:

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng

03: Community Builders Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

Open source has become an essential part of software development, for both individuals and companies. Hear from Spotify engineers about what it’s like to build products in the open, what they’ve learned from developing Backstage with hundreds of friendly, helpful Internet strangers, and how participating in a community helps you grow as an individual, too.

Host and Spotify principal engineer Dave Zolotusky talks with Emma Indal and Himanshu Mishra, two engineers who work on Backstage, the platform for building developer portals that Spotify open sourced in 2020. Like the rest of Spotify’s Backstage team, Emma got a crash course in working with a rapidly growing community and discovered just how fast new features can be built when you have contributors from all around the world joining in to help out. Himanshu was one of those early contributors, working on the project from the outside before turning his weekend obsessions and longtime interest in open source into a new job at Spotify. For both, the opportunity to build with the open source community has been a pivotal part of their journey as developers.

Learn more about Backstage and open source at Spotify:

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng

02: Open Issues Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

Backstage, Spotify’s homegrown developer portal, has become the most ambitious open source project in the company’s history. But for many on the team, it was the first open source project they’d ever launched. What were the technical decisions they considered/reconsidered/forgot to consider before releasing it into the wild? And what did they learn along the way?

Host and Spotify principal engineer Dave Zolotusky returns with Lee Mills, along with Patrik Oldsberg, both maintainers of Backstage open source. Hear why some on the Spotify team were actually relieved when given less time to get the job done, how perfection can be your enemy, and why Patrik is having trouble finding the right window blinds.

Learn more about Backstage and open source at Spotify:

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng

01: What is Backstage? Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

Spotify has thousands of developers managing tens of thousands of software components. How do you even begin to manage all that complexity? If you’re Spotify, you build your very own developer portal — we call it Backstage. Wait, what’s a developer portal? Good question!

Host and Spotify principal engineer Dave Zolotusky will introduce you to Austin Lamon and Lee Mills, two members of the Backstage team at Spotify, who work on both the open source and internal versions of Backstage. Hear what it’s like to have your fellow developers as your “customers” — and also hear from two of those customers, Chantal Delfeld and Kana Abe, engineers who joined Spotify more recently. They tell us about their experience discovering all that is Backstage for the first time. Plus, hear what else the team is nerding out about in their spare time.

Learn more about Backstage and open source at Spotify:

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering Blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng

00: Introducing NerdOut@Spotify Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

A tech podcast produced by the nerds at Spotify, made for the nerds inside all of us. We’ll try to find the answer to questions big and small, like: Is it harder or easier to be a developer today? Is TypeScript lovable? Should you run your home automation on a Kubernetes cluster? Subscribe to find out.

Read what else we’re nerding out about on the Spotify Engineering blog: engineering.atspotify.com

You should follow us on Twitter @SpotifyEng!

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