Pros
The organizational culture is special—truly a unique find with headquarters in beautiful Santa Barbara. The company lives by its values and cultural norms, and measures employee performance against alignment with the values and norms, so make sure you believe in the values. Individual departments take on their own culture—so make sure you understand what your manager’s style is and how team members describe the work environment. I felt like I had a seat at the table, that my opinions were considered and respected, and that I directly contributed to the success of the organization in visible ways. The mission made me happy and I believed in it. The product is phenomenal. It positively impacts your life, and your friends and family will love you for the discounts. Music is on in the office all day—a pro for me! I really enjoyed my coworkers and my manager—definitely people I was happy to grab a drink with. Nice mix of folks from college grads to experienced professionals at all different stages of life. Work was fun and there were occasional work events to mingle with other departments. 1:1’s with my manager were beneficial and I received good development and coaching while there. I completed some of my best work at Sonos and wore several hats—a product of good timing, getting the right opportunities, and lack of sufficient labor resources.
Cons
Slow to make decisions and affect change. The company has created a culture of taking the time to get it right at the expense of being nimble, which is difficult in such a competitive environment. This trait is reflected across several departments—from product to finance. Certainly there are promotions, but as with many smaller mature companies, opportunity for upward mobility is limited by who makes room for you above. And Santa Barbara is beautiful and has a limited job market—directors+ like to hang in there. Just make sure you like the role and compensation you got hired in at—you could be there several years. Archaic finance systems and lack of labor resources to be successful. Leadership does not timely invest in system resources or get additional skilled labor resources to fill in the interim gaps to the detriment of their organizational effectiveness. Boys club. I’ve seen it a few times in other posts and it was true during my time. Certain departments only promoted men for the last few years even when their headcount had approx. 50/50 male:female ratio. Total compensation package is underwhelming, but getting better. Compensation was historically weighted towards equity. However, with lackluster stock performance since the public debut, I hope leadership is considering how to retain employees.