As a teenager he sang in a variety of bands before joining a glam-style metal band called It’s Alive in 1985 as their singer and frontman. It’s Alive was formed by ex-LAZY members Per Aldeheim and Kim Björkgren on guitars, and John Rosth who had been a member of Lineout. Martin eventually dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music with his band under the nickname “Martin White”. In 1988 they participated in the national rock championships and played as the in-house band at a disco in Cyprus. The band got a breakthrough in 1991, as Dave Constable of Megarock Records offered them to make a demo-record. The later debut album was originally pressed in 1,000 copies and later on given away as a free cover tape in the UK by the Metal Forces magazine.

In 1993, Martin was hired by Cheiron Studios and spent some time learning the basics, before the first production collaboration between PoP and Martin: the Rednex song “Wish You Were Here” in 1994. They both worked on Ace of Base’s second album, The Bridge (1995), shortly thereafter, as well as on albums by 3T, Army of Lovers and Leila K. To date, The Bridge has sold more than six million copies worldwide, including one million in the United States. When Martin eventually left his band It’s Alive in late 1995, he was replaced by Anders Hansson.

The decision to focus on a music career paid off as they landed a record deal on producer Denniz PoP’s label Cheiron Records, a BMG affiliate. After recording their second album Earthquake Visions, they released three singles in conjunction with the record and toured through Europe in 1994 supporting Kingdom Come. Earthquake Visions eventually sold a disappointing 30,000 copies, despite being released in as many as 30 countries. More importantly though, Martin also began collaborating on songs with PoP. Recognizing a talent for writing pop songs in the young rocker, PoP renamed his new protégé Max Martin and eventually became Martin’s mentor.

In 1995, the Cheiron Studios was hired by Zomba to work on Backstreet Boys’ self-titled debut album Backstreet Boys (1996). Zomba became the main working partner since the success in 1995. Martin took part in the production of “Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)” (1996), co-written with Herbie Crichlow, a single which quickly went platinum and climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the singles “As Long As You Love Me” (1997) and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” (1997). The album was not released in the U.S. until 1997, but was released overseas and caught on all across Europe, eventually selling around 8 million copies worldwide. This led to the Backstreet Boys being relaunched in their home country later on, this time more successfully. Later that year, Martin co-wrote and co-produced Robyn’s hits “Show Me Love” and “Do You Know (What It Takes)” which ended up on the Billboard Hot 100 top 10.

In 1998, Cheiron Productions worked on albums by Five and Jessica Folcker. Jessica Folcker had first been hired as a backing singer for tracks with Ace of Base and Dr. Alban, and her debut album Jessica became an instant hit with singles like “Tell Me What You Like” and “How Will I Know Who You Are” which both sold platinum. After Denniz PoP died of cancer that same summer, Martin took over as director of Cheiron Studios. He soon started working with writer/producer Rami Yacoub, who continued to be his partner for many years. Martin also wrote two songs with Bryan Adams during this time, “Cloud Number Nine” and “Before The Night Is Over”.

In 1998, Martin wrote and co-produced Spears’ debut single, “…Baby One More Time”, for her debut album of the same name. The single was originally offered to the Backstreet Boys and TLC, though both passed on the song. That same year, Martin also co-wrote and co-produced the third single “(You Drive Me) Crazy”. By 1999, the album …Baby One More Time had sold over 15 million copies in the U.S., certifying Diamond Status. Also, within a year of its release, …Baby One More Time had become the best-selling LP by a teenager in history, selling over 30 million copies. Martin was the first non-American citizen ever to win ASCAP’s prestigious award “Songwriter of the Year” in 1999, an award he also won in 2000 and 2001.

Since 1998, Martin has written or co-written 23 Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit songs (most of which he has also produced or co-produced). Five of these songs debuted at number one on the chart.

In late 1999, Celine Dion released “That’s the Way It Is”, a song co-written by Max Martin to promote her greatest hits album All the Way… A Decade of Song. The song became a hit, going to number 1 on the adult contemporary charts in the United States and Canada, and reaching top 10 all over the world. Since the song was released in November 1999, it has cycled 500,000 times on almost 1400 radio stations across Canada and the U.S. In 2003 Martin co-wrote and produced three songs for Dion’s album One Heart. One of them, called “Faith”, was released in 2003 as a promotional single in Canada and reached number 4 on the Quebec Airplay Chart and number 37 on the Canadian Adult Contemporary Chart.

Following the death of Denniz PoP, Cheiron Studios was closed down in 2000. Martin and Tom Talomaa then started a new production company named Maratone in January 2001 and moved into the famous Cosmos Studios building. The first songs to be written and produced at Maratone were four tracks for Britney Spears’s album, Britney (album) (2001). The Maratone production crew initially consisted of producers/songwriters Max Martin, Rami, Alexandra, Arnthor Birgisson and Shellback. Following the work with Celine Dion on the album One Heart in 2003, few new hits appeared from Maratone until 2005.

Martin wrote, co-wrote, and co-produced 7 out of the 12 songs on the Backstreet Boys’ third album Millennium (1999), including all the singles. “I Want It That Way”, a hit song Martin co-wrote with Andreas Carlsson and co-produced with Kristian Lundin, became the group’s biggest single to date and it is still popular today. (“I Want It That Way” was voted No. 10 in the MTV/Rolling Stone list of the “100 Greatest Pop Songs”.) A VH1 special, 100 Greatest Songs of the ’90s, ranked the song at number 3, making it the highest ranked boy-band single and pop song. Millennium sold over 1.1 million units in its first week in the United States, setting a record for most albums sold in its debut week (that record was later beaten by NSYNC’s 2000 album No Strings Attached), and was the best-selling album in the world. When working on her own solo album, to be released in 2001 on Stockholm Records, Lisa Miskovsky wrote the lyrics for the Backstreet Boys’ hit single “Shape of My Heart” with Max Martin and Rami. The song, originally written for Miskovsky’s own album, was passed on to the Backstreet Boys by Max Martin when Miskovsky decided that it did not fit her style. The song became the first single off the group’s fourth album Black & Blue (2000). In the first week of release, “Shape of My Heart” immediately jumped into the Top Five in Sweden, Norway, Canada, Germany and another 15 countries. Black & Blue, containing several songs produced and written by Martin, sold 1.6 million units in its first week in America. Martin again received ASCAP’s award “Songwriter of the Year” both in 2000 and 2001. In April 2013 the Backstreet Boys member Brian Littrell invited Martin to collaborate on their single “In A World Like This”. The single peaked at No.6 in the Oricon chart and performed well in the rest of the world. Martin collaborated on the Never Gone songs “Climbing the Walls”, “Just Want You to Know”, “Siberia” and “I Still…”. Martin wanted the album to be more of a contemporary, alternative pop album with a little R&B. The resulting album had a more organic music style with more live instruments, and was a departure from the Backstreet Boys’ earlier work.

In 2004, Kelly Clarkson traveled to Sweden to collaborate with Martin and Dr. Luke on her second studio album, Breakaway. These collaborations resulted in the rock-influenced singles “Since U Been Gone” (2004) and “Behind These Hazel Eyes” (2005). In 2009, Martin co-wrote Clarkson’s single “My Life Would Suck Without You”, which was a number one hit.

In 2005, Martin collaborated with the Norwegian singer Marion Raven for the release of her debut album, titled Here I Am, writing and co-writing the songs “Break You”, “End of Me”, “Here I Am”, “Little By Little”, “In Spite of Me”, and “Six Feet Under”.

In 2005, Max Martin wrote the first single-song for pop punk duo The Veronicas, “4ever”, with Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald for their debut studio album The Secret Life Of… (2005). Also he wrote “Everything I’m Not”, the second single-song of The Veronicas, the same year, again with Gottwald, Rami, Jessica Origliasso and Lisa Origliasso for the same album The Secret Life Of….

Martin also co-wrote “Into the Nightlife”, a popular club track recorded by Cyndi Lauper in 2008 and produced, alongside Zedd, and co-wrote “Beauty and a Beat”, on Justin Bieber’s 2012 album Believe.

Fourth runner-up of the eighth season of American Idol, Allison Iraheta has been collaborating with Martin on her debut album. Her first single, “Friday I’ll Be Over U” is confirmed to be written by Martin. On 17 August 2009, American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert announced via Twitter that he was in New York City with Martin recording a song for his debut album. It turned out to be the song “Whataya Want From Me”, that was also written by P!nk.

In 2010, Martin co-wrote and co-produced Usher’s song “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” that went number-one on the US Rhythmic charts and top-ten on the main Hot 100. Working together again, Martin co-wrote and co-produced on Usher’s seventh studio album “Looking 4 Myself” in 2012 making the dance-pop song “Scream” that went number-one on the US Dance Club Songs chart and number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Confirmed by RCA Executives on 18 December 2011, Martin worked on Christina Aguilera’s seventh studio album Lotus (2012) and was the producer of her lead single, “Your Body” (2012), as well as another song titled “Let There Be Love”. Both songs reached the top of the Billboard dance/club chart.

Martin met his wife, Jenny (née Petersson) from Mörrum, around 2000 and married her in 2011. The couple have a daughter, Doris, born around 2001.

In January 2014, Martin produced a two-minute advertisement entitled “Volvo XC70: Made By Sweden”, featuring soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović. The video of the advertisement received several million views on YouTube.

In early 2014, Martin co-wrote the song “Dare (La La La)” for Shakira’s self-titled album.

In April–May 2014, Martin produced Jennifer Lopez’s song “First Love”, alongside Ilya, Shellback and Savan Kotecha.

In June 2015, he co-wrote and produced The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face”, which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Martin co-wrote and produced two other songs from The Weeknd’s sophomore album, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015), namely “In the Night” and “Shameless”, as well as four songs from The Weeknd’s third album, Starboy (2016). He also worked on The Weeknd’s fourth studio album, After Hours (2020), contributing five compositions, “Hardest to Love”, “Scared to Live”, “Blinding Lights”, “In Your Eyes”, and “Save Your Tears”. The album was both a critical and commercial success.

In January 2015, he co-wrote and co-produced Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me like You Do”, which reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, while also producing several songs from her album Delirium including the hit single “On My Mind”, which was released on 17 September 2015.

In July 2015, Martin produced Demi Lovato’s song “Cool for the Summer” which reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. He also contributed to “Confident” and “For You” from her fifth studio album Confident.

In November 2015, Adele’s album 25 was released and Martin co-wrote and co-produced the record’s third single “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” with Shellback, and would eventually become a top 10 hit in the US and the UK.

2016 saw Martin being heavily involved in the making of Ariana Grande’s third album Dangerous Woman, with half of its songs (including both singles) being produced by him. The same year, he produced the 10th track for Nick Jonas’ third studio album, while also co-producing standalone songs for American singers Pink (“Just Like Fire”) and Katy Perry (“Rise”).

In 2016, he co-wrote the song “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” by Justin Timberlake which is also the title song for the film Trolls with Shellback. The song became Timberlake’s fifth and Martin’s twenty-second number-one hit in the US. It reached the top spot in 16 other countries. The song gave Timberlake and Martin their first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Martin co-wrote and produced three songs on Pink’s platinum-selling album I’m Not Dead, including the singles, “U + Ur Hand” (2006), “Who Knew” (2006), and “Cuz I Can” (2007). Martin also collaborated with Pink for her next album, Funhouse (2008). Martin co-wrote the first smash hit single, “So What” (2008), plus the singles “Please Don’t Leave Me” (2009) and “I Don’t Believe You” (2009). The duo wrote “Whataya Want From Me” during the sessions for Funhouse, but ultimately the song was recorded and released as a single by Adam Lambert. Later, Martin co-wrote hits for Pink including “Raise Your Glass” (2010), “Fuckin’ Perfect” (2011), and “Just like Fire” (2016), for various Pink-related projects. For her seventh studio album, Beautiful Trauma (2017), he co-wrote “Revenge”, “Whatever You Want”, “For Now”, and “Secrets”. In 2019 for her eighth studio album, Hurts 2B Human (2019), he co-wrote “(Hey Why) Miss You Sometime”.

In 2019, Max Martin co-produced and co-wrote Ed Sheeran’s and Justin Bieber’s hit single “I Don’t Care”.

In 2020, Max Martin co-wrote and co-produced “Stupid Love”, the first single extracted from Lady Gaga’s sixth studio album Chromatica. This marks the first time the two have worked together.