Engineering and Design

Being an engineer surrounded by designers feels like a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship where everyone benefits. The fact that I can be so close, helps me understand them better, allows me to be involved in the decision-making process, and be better informed when translating design into code. At the same time, I can provide technical feedback at an early stage that can potentially pivot solutions, and help in building a bridge of communication between both worlds.

It means being much closer to the design efforts across Spotify, and I get to see many new and creative ways of working that I can also adopt as an engineer. There is a lot of collaboration that happens as we are trying to help scale design efforts, designers can have input into engineering work, and vice versa. It also enables a lot of cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing, which I enjoy.

It's a unique opportunity where I get to observe (perhaps even participate) in the involved design process with an engineer's perspective while trying to wear my designer's cap. I think being in the design organization ultimately helps me become a better engineer because I'm exposed to the holistic product cycle more (from “understand it” to “ship it”). Working alongside so many talented designers also helps me understand how to better collaborate with designers early on in the process and vice versa. (Added bonus: all of the swag is so pretty.)