The Performance Optimization Squad is a newly formed team in the Core Infrastructure Studio with a mission to establish a core competency in performance engineering and address systemic inefficiencies across Spotify's platform. With 3,200+ microservices, 40,000 VMs at peak, and 500,000 K8s pods, even minor fleet-wide efficiency improvements result in substantial cost savings. We've already identified $8M+ in annual savings from our first initiative alone, and we're just getting started.
This squad works horizontally across the entire stack — but none of that optimization happens without the data to see it. We're looking for a Data Analyst who will build the measurement foundation that drives every decision we make.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, and maintain datasets and data pipelines that surface resource utilization, cost, and performance signals across Spotify's infrastructure
- Define and own metrics for efficiency, latency, and resource utilization; turning raw infrastructure signals into insights that drive prioritization
- Proactively investigate performance data to surface optimization opportunities, not just respond to engineering requests
- Build dashboards and analyses that support decision-making across the squad and partnering platform teams
- Work with engineers and platform teams to define guardrail metrics, validate findings, and measure the real-world impact of optimization efforts
- Translate complex infrastructure data into clear stories for both technical and non-technical audiences
- Own the data foundation: There is no inherited data infrastructure here; you'll design and build it from scratch. What gets measured, and how, is yours to define
- See your impact directly: Every insight you surface translates into cost savings. We measure success in dollars saved and efficiency gained; your work shows up in production
- Breadth at scale: Work across the entire Spotify platform; 3,200+ microservices, 40,000 VMs, 500,000 K8s pods. Few companies offer data problems at this scale
- Greenfield from day one: Help shape the culture, tooling, and data strategy of a brand new squad with strong executive support
Optimization at this scale is only possible when someone can see the problem clearly. You'll build the data foundation from scratch; designing and owning the datasets, pipelines, and metrics that make performance inefficiencies visible across the platform.
Who You Are
- You have experience working with infrastructure, platform, or cloud cost data; Kubernetes metrics, cost attribution, utilization signals, or observability data feel familiar
- Or you're a strong technical analyst with enough grounding in distributed systems and cloud infrastructure to navigate GKE cost data, JVM metrics, and resource utilization signals
- You write clean, efficient SQL and Python; comfortable enough to model data and build lightweight pipelines, not just query existing tables
- You're self-directed: at your best when hunting for problems in the data, not waiting to be handed them
- Comfortable with ambiguity and able to carve your own path in an early-stage, unstructured environment
- Experienced with data visualization tools (Looker or similar) and know how to make a dashboard tell a story, not just display numbers
- You communicate clearly and confidently with engineers and non-technical stakeholders alike
Where You'll Be
- This role is based in Stockholm or London.
- 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.

