Samuel Thomas
BA (Hons) International Business, 2011
About me
- Associate Director, Customer Experience at Spotify in New York
- Studied: BA (Hons) International Business, 2011
ABOUT MY CAREER
My first role after graduating was as a Customer Advisor at Spotify. I focused my final year dissertation on digital music distribution, and pinpointed Spotify as a company I wanted to work for. Fortunately, they were just opening up an office in Cambridge – so I applied, and got the job a week or so later.
I spent those first 18 months answering customer emails, before then setting up our (award winning!) Social Media support channels and moving into management. I’ve been lucky enough to set up new offices, teams, and move up the company ever since. I was then moved over to New York in 2017.
I now oversee two teams at Spotify, based in three locations: New York, Stockholm and Cambridge.
The first team are a group of program and project managers responsible for the smooth rollout of new products and features within our Customer Service organisation (which is about 1700+ people). They work with our R&D, Communications, Legal, and Marketing teams to make sure we are always trying to create the best customer experience for any new product or feature.
The second team are the other end of the product lifecycle – they’re the team that collect and distil customer feedback, and work with our R&D teams to fix or correct anything that needs looking at. They’re constantly monitoring the service, and are ready to co-ordinate any type of service outage – if your Spotify is misbehaving, it’s highly likely one of the team is already working on it!
MY TOP TIP FOR STUDENTS IS
Find a company, industry, or job that you are passionate about. As a hiring manager, it’s easy to see who has that passion and drive to improve. And, if you do something you believe in, you’ll enjoy your job, progress quicker and learn more.
I took part in the Erasmus programme and studied at the Universidad de Sevilla, in Seville, Spain for a year. Studying in another country, learning a new language, and meeting great people along the way, opened up new perspectives and taught me more than I could have imagined. I would always push someone to do a placement or exchange, simply because pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is the best way to grow.
WHY I LOVE MANCHESTER MET
I loved living and studying in a world-class, cosmopolitan city, while being given a platform to succeed and expanding my knowledge.