Music Is Everywhere at Sonos, Including a Hidden Listening Room
The sound of silence is not one you’ll hear at Sonos. Music is a constant presence at the speaker brand’s new Boston office, which was designed with collaboration in mind by IA Interior Architects. It flows through the enormous café that houses biweekly team lunches and streams into numerous conference rooms as well as a designated game area and an outdoor patio. And for employees who want to enjoy a playlist privately, the secret listening room — accessible via a rotating door disguised as a bookshelf — offers sonic solitude.
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Laide Olambiwonnu
Product Manager
“I can go and talk to anyone regardless of title, level or experience and still be valued and respected. That’s something I’ve never experienced anywhere else. If there’s someone I don’t know, I can set up coffee or lunch just to get to know them better and understand what they do. They always say yes.”
Chuck Freedman
Principal Product Manager and Developer Advocate
“Everything about our product is done here. Our devices can be prototyped here, they can be fabricated and tested here, and the software and platform that make everything work are also developed here. As you walk through the halls, you see folks who are responsible for each part of that.”
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Sein Woo
Senior User Experience Designer
“I’ve worked here for 10 and a half years, and our old office really didn’t have any kitchen space. Now we have a huge café, and it’s lovely. I like that I can meet with people and we can just kind of grab chairs in the seating area.”
Sam Park
UX Designer
“I love all the meeting rooms because they’re so different — the look of them, and also the size. It’s really considerate of how we work, because we collaborate with teams across the U.S. and internationally, so we do a lot of video conference calls. I like having all these different options.”
Cristina Donatelli
Program Manager for Talent Acquisition
“Our mission is to fill every home with music. So when you walk through each department, you’ll hear the music transition from someone playing classical to someone playing hip-hop. It feels organic, like it was set up not as an office but as a home.”
Heidi Lowry
Brand Activation Manager
“There’s definitely a work-life balance that comes from the very top. I don’t feel like I’m on my email all the time on the weekends or at night. It’s very laid-back here, but we still get stuff done.”
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Michael Keimig
Global Real Estate Project Manager
“This office is one of the first projects I worked on when I joined Sonos three years ago, and it’s amazing to see what we envisioned come to life. From little design details to the secret listening room behind the bookshelf — seeing the team interact with the space and how much they like it, that’s what I love the most.”
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