How We Release the Spotify App: A Look Under the Hood (Part 2)

Spotify's Release Manager Dashboard is a Backstage plugin that consolidates release data from ~10 systems into a single interface for managing Android, iOS, and Desktop app releases.

• •The dashboard replaced a Jira-based workflow, reducing context switching and cognitive load by showing release state, blocking bugs, sign-off status, RC build progress, and quality metrics in one view
• •The backend acts as an API gateway aggregating data every 5 minutes with caching, reducing page load time from slow/costly queries to 8 seconds at minimal cost
• •Time-series data from polling revealed the biggest release bottlenecks: fixing blocking bugs and waiting for App Store approval
• •A "Robot" automation service was built to advance releases through states (branched → RC → review → 1% rollout → 100%) when conditions are met, cutting average release cycle by ~8 hours
• •Future plans include making the dashboard more modular to support smaller Spotify apps with lighter release processes