CoRecursive: Coding Stories
Story: Platform Takes The Pain
Nov 2, 2023
Learn how Spotify scaled their engineering team without losing speed and independence, creating a unified developer platform called Backstage. Discover the challenges faced, including silos and communication gaps, and how they were overcome through transparency and collaboration. Hear how the development of Backstage with a plugin model transformed the engineering culture and enabled scalability.
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Quick takeaways
- Spotify consolidated its CI infrastructure in just six months, solving the complexity and duplication challenges while addressing risks to security and scalability.
- The development of Backstage, a centralized developer portal, played a crucial role in transforming Spotify's engineering culture by providing transparency, reducing fragmentation, and empowering engineers to access information and collaborate effectively.
Deep dives
Spotify faced challenges in preparing for IPO
In 2016, Spotify needed to prepare for an IPO, requiring careful planning and clean internal operations. However, they discovered vulnerabilities in their CI infrastructure, with over 200 bespoke Jenkinses maintained by 300 teams. This decentralized approach led to complexity and duplication, posing a risk to security. To address this, Pia Nelson and her team consolidated the CI infrastructure in just six months, not only solving the CI challenge but also leading a transformation in Spotify's engineering practices.
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