How My GitHub Profile Landed Me a Job at Spotify
Tags: career, github, programming, webdev
Published: 2022-05-15 09:50:41

This is the experience of how my GitHub profile got me a job at Spotify. The key was my GitHub profile and the various repos I had worked on the years before. This post will be personal, and the key takeaway is the importance of a portfolio. It doesn't have to be a good portfolio (mine certainly wasn't). But having _a_ portfolio can be the difference between getting the job or not.

## Spotify Interview

Before Spotify, I worked as a software engineer at a different company. It was my first job after university and it was all right. I learned how software was being developed professionally which was fun and interesting. One day, I get an e-mail from Spotify and they were asking for applications for 3-month internships. I immediately sent them my CV.

A couple of days later I receive a phone call and I get called for an interview. The day of the interview is approaching and I'm starting to feel sick 😨. On the day of the interview, I had a fever, but I took some medicine and went there anyway. The interview did not go well. We talked and did some coding exercises on the board. I completely blacked out (partially because of the medicine). The last thing I said was "Please, check out my GitHub profile" and they said they would.

After the interview, I was so disappointed in myself 😔. I returned home to my job, which now seemed boring and bleak.

## The Call Back

A few days pass and I get a phone call. It was the recruiter! He said they liked me and would like to offer me the internship! Wow, what a feeling! 😃 I accepted, and a few weeks later I quit my current job. My friends and colleagues were surprised I would quit my full-time job for a 3-month internship, but I didn't care. My two greatest passions in life are technology and music, and I was going to be working with both! 💻🎸

## Internship Ends

The deal with the internship was, that if they liked me they would offer me a permanent job. The date when my internship was ending was quickly approaching. I was nervous, but I had learned so much and met a lot of people from different parts of the world so I was happy either way. We had a meeting and they said they would like to offer me a permanent job. Again, bliss! I felt such a relief and of course, excitement!

## My GitHub Profile

Later, I was talking to someone in my team about my interview. I told her how bad it went, and how surprised I was to still get the offer. She told me something like "_Yeah, they told me it went bad. But when we looked at your GitHub profile we saw that you actually can code. And that's why we wanted you_".

My profile did not contain a lot; some HTML, CSS, and JavaScript websites I had built for fun and to learn. Before the interview, I looked through the code to make sure it looked nice and tidy.

## Conclusion

I got an internship that later led to a permanent job at Spotify, thanks to my GitHub profile. I realized how crucial having _a_ portfolio is. It doesn't have to be the best, just something to show what you can do. This was 6 years ago. I still work at Spotify, now as a Senior Software Engineer. It turned out to be an amazing place to work so I haven't found a good reason to leave.

If I can do it, you can too!! 👊 Thanks for reading.

---

_Connect with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/prplcode), [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/simeg), or [GitHub](https://github.com/simeg)_
_Originally published at [prplcode.dev](https://prplcode.dev)_