Spotify has an in-house design team in NYC of well over 25 highly paid art directors (think $150k and up), poached from the digital ad agency, who do absolutely nothing all day besides work on "campaign ideas" and make playlist covers and "design systems for RapCaviar" and generate portfolio-friendly PDFs of work that have absolutely zero connection to the core product or product experience. Meanwhile their actual branding and website (etc) are all designed by external highly paid agencies. The internal design team get to enjoy really exclusive private concerts in the NY HQ by music artists beholden to Spotify. It's all very cushy.

The company is absolutely heavy with highly paid department staff who are all working on fantasyware that does nothing to improve all of the things people complain about Spotify.