This year, I watched an insurtech company I work with successfully transition to the Spotify model. They moved from the traditional department structure to cross-functional squads. It looked good in theory. Turns out, it mostly worked. But it also exposed something important about how QA fits into this structure.
What is the Spotify Model?
For those unfamiliar, the Spotify model emerged from Spotify’s engineering culture around 2012. Instead of organizing teams by function (all frontend developers together, all QA in one department), you organize around features or services. Each squad is autonomous:
- Self contained team with developers, designers, and QA
- Authority to make technical decisions
- Ownership of their services end to end
- Freedom to opt out of meetings and processes that don’t apply to them
The model also introduced “chapters” (groups of specialists across squads) and “tribes” (collections of squads working on related areas) to maintain some cross team consistency.
The Real Benefits
Done right, the Spotify model actually does improve how teams work together:
Smaller, more focused meetings. Instead of 30 person standup meetings, squads had 6-8 person dailies. People actually talked instead of just listening to updates.
Ownership mentality. Developers felt genuinely invested in their services.
Flexibility and autonomy. If a meeting didn’t apply to your squad, you didn’t have to attend.
Expertise centers. Developers focusing on one thing were able to make a much larger impact than ones who became generalist. Lots of great innovation comes from mastery and true understanding.
Better product outcomes. Squads moving faster with clearer ownership led to better quality products. When people have mastery over their system, they’re less likely to introduce issues.
The QA Consideration
Here’s one thing worth knowing though, the Spotify model works best when you have enough QA capacity to embed in each squad, or when there’s a whole-team quality culture like an Amazon.
In my experience, most organizations, and especially smaller, ones don’t have unlimited QA budgets. When you have many developers spread across multiple squads but only a handful of QA engineers, true squad autonomy becomes harder to achieve. You end up with rotating QA assignments or cross functional support rather than dedicated squad members.
This isn’t a deal breaker, it’s just the reality. Some companies solve it by investing in QA hiring. Others shift testing left and have developers write integration and API tests. The smartest ones do both: they invest in QA where it matters most (exploratory testing, edge cases, business logic validation) while leveraging developer testing for speed.
When the Spotify Model Shines for QA
The model works brilliantly when:
You have embedded QA in each squad. Each squad has their own dedicated QA engineer or team who owns testing strategy and implementation.
Your developers write their own tests. If your engineering culture emphasizes unit tests, integration tests, and developers owning test automation, QA can focus on higher level testing and strategy.
You maintain services with clear boundaries. When services are truly independent, QA can test them in isolation. Integration testing becomes a smaller part of the overall effort.
What Makes it Successful
The company I worked with succeeded because they:
-
Invested in QA infrastructure. They built shared testing frameworks and utilities that squads could leverage, reducing dependency on individual QA engineers.
-
Prioritized developer testing. They trained developers to write comprehensive unit and integration tests, shifting testing left significantly.
-
Created QA chapters with authority. QA engineers weren’t just embedded, they also met regularly to share knowledge, set standards, and coordinate testing strategy across squads.
-
Were honest about constraints. They didn’t pretend they had unlimited resources. They made intentional trade offs and adapted the model to their reality.
The Bottom Line
The Spotify model is genuinely effective for organizations willing to support it properly. It creates better ownership, faster decision making, and more engaged teams. For QA specifically:
- It works great if you invest in QA capacity or developer testing
- It requires clear testing standards across squads to avoid chaos
- It’s not a cure all, it’s a framework that needs adaptation
The teams that win aren’t the ones expecting it to fix everything. They adapt it to their constraints, invest in the right infrastructure, and make intentional trade-offs.
The model works. The key is implementing it thoughtfully for your specific reality.