Sorry for late answers here but thanks for asking questions!
> How does accountability work at Spotify? It looks like your squads have a specific goal (and maybe a leader?) but when you get up to the tribe level it wasn't clear if one person is in charge of a tribe, or if a product, design and tech lead all share authority. If that is true, do you guys not suffer from the tyranny of structurelessness? How do you do strategic planning/coordination?
Squads don't have leaders, but they do have product owners who ultimately owns the roadmap of the product owned by that squad. A tribe is lead by a trio of engineering, product and design. Responsibility for the various facets of the tribes output is divided between the three roles.
> How do teams that are not engineering focused get stuff done? For instance a customer support team or marketing team - would it have its own engineers and engineering management?
Yeah, the tech/product side of that have homes in tribes as well.
> Edit: finally, how long have you worked at Spotify with this culture?
I've been here 2.5 years. This structure has been in place for roughly three years, maybe a bit more.
> How does accountability work at Spotify? It looks like your squads have a specific goal (and maybe a leader?) but when you get up to the tribe level it wasn't clear if one person is in charge of a tribe, or if a product, design and tech lead all share authority. If that is true, do you guys not suffer from the tyranny of structurelessness? How do you do strategic planning/coordination?
Squads don't have leaders, but they do have product owners who ultimately owns the roadmap of the product owned by that squad. A tribe is lead by a trio of engineering, product and design. Responsibility for the various facets of the tribes output is divided between the three roles.
> How do teams that are not engineering focused get stuff done? For instance a customer support team or marketing team - would it have its own engineers and engineering management?
Yeah, the tech/product side of that have homes in tribes as well.
> Edit: finally, how long have you worked at Spotify with this culture?
I've been here 2.5 years. This structure has been in place for roughly three years, maybe a bit more.