No Spotify without KTH
Eighty percent of the star developers at Spotify are former KTH students/researchers/employees . This is not surprising, says Fredrik Niemelä, doctoral student at KTH and employed by one of Sweden’s hottest companies.
The product development manager Fredrik Niemelä and technical manager Andreas Ehn together with the developers Magnus Hult and Gunnar Kreitz make up the core technical competence of the music services company Spotify.
They all have a background at the School of Computer Science and Communications at KTH.
“Much of the technology behind Spotify comes indirectly from KTH,” says Fredrik Niemela.
But it is not just the star developers at Spotify that have a strong association with KTH. The company has recruited many developers from the university. The reason is, according to Fredrik Niemela, KTH has considerable leading-edge skills in theoretical computer science.
“Theoretical computer science may sound complicated, and it is. Quite simply it deals with the art of developing smart solutions,” he says.
Fredrik Niemelä adds that there is one other factor which plays a major role.
“The School of Computer Science and Communications has prioritised and emphasised the importance of teaching for quite some time. This has produced results,” he says.
Peter Larsson