Principal Technical Support Engineer

This role is a hybrid position

Some roles require an office while others may be done remotely. This position is considered hybrid, allowing for a combination of remote work and in-office collaboration. Qualified applicants must live within commuting distance of our Boston, MA; Seattle, WA or Goleta, CA office locations.  

The Principal Technical Support Engineer owns support readiness for Sonos Hardware and Software products for our global Customer Experience support team. In this role, you will work with product teams throughout the development cycle to prepare the HW product or SW feature for release with a focus on technical system serviceability. You will ensure that our technical support teams have what they need to solve product or customer experience challenges. You will ensure all product releases inherently have capabilities to identify exceptions, faults and scope of impact. You will train, mentor and empower support engineers across the organization by documenting debugging practices and applications. In this highly visible position, you will identify and lead product quality initiatives with a cross functional global product engineering, management, development and customer experience support teams to drive positive change in Sonos products, services and support.

What You’ll Do

• Create requirements, test and ensure support needs are met for new or existing Sonos products or features.

• Foster relationships cross functionally across the company as a technical advocate for our customers and the Customer Experience organization. 

• Be engaged and own the investigation and tactical response for the most critical escalations, including pervasive bugs and potential product defects.

• Mentor the junior Technical Support team members as a primary component of your daily work.

• Create technical training material and support documentation for a larger support team audience related to troubleshooting process and best practices.

• Evolve current support tool and support process capabilities with measurable impact to support team efficiency and quality. 

• Isolate negative support and product experience trends with insights and present recommendations provided at an executive level.

What You’ll Need

Basic Qualifications

• Strong technical leader with 10+ years’ experience in 2nd and 3rd level technical support escalation support and debugging of TCP/IP (IPv4/IPv6, DNS, mDNS, SSDP, HTTP,  SSL , UPnP,  and Multicast) networks and routing protocols in Enterprise environments.

• Technical Degree in Computer Science Engineering, Electrical Engineering, RF Engineering or related experience.

• 4+ years experience extracting, manipulating and analyzing data to recommend and/or take action.

• 4+ years experience documenting business or technical requirements, processes and workflows.

• Communicate effectively with customers, stakeholders, senior leadership and technical specialists.

• Experience making decisions independently with little oversight, as well as excellent time management skills while working on multiple ongoing projects.

• Experience diving into and learning new technologies. 

• Has the ability to read source code as it relates to SW functionality and design.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong technical background with an ability to rapidly learn new technologies.

• Data certifications and hands on experience working with Tableau, Kibana, OpenSeach, MicroStrategy, Datadog or similar data visualization tools to define scope of impact with data.

• Serviceability/Supportability role experience with consumer electronics (IoT) products or similar with the ability to voice concerns with functionality during product development.

• Experience writing and delivering technical training materials.

• Comfortable making hard decisions using a blend of quantitative and qualitative inputs. 

• Able to define vision and strategy, in addition to solid results-driven execution.

• Experience with Agile Software Development methods.

• Highly proficient with protocol level debugging with Wireshark, tcpdump or similar industry tools.

• Experience with installing and maintaining consumer and/or small business networking equipment.

• Familiarity with Linux and audio streaming formats is beneficial.

Research shows that some candidates may not apply for roles if they don't meet all the criteria. If you don’t have 100% of the skills listed, we strongly encourage you to apply if interested.

Visa Sponsorship: Sonos is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for this role at this time. We ask that applicants be authorized to work for any US employer, both now and in the future.

#LI-Hybrid

Your profile will be reviewed and you'll hear from us once we have an update. At Sonos we take the time to hire right and appreciate your patience.

The base pay range for this role based off geographic location is:

The specific pay offered will depend on the candidate’s geographic location, as well as qualifications and experience. We apply geographic pay differentials based on the cost of labor in the market.  Employees in high-cost locations may be compensated at the upper end of the range, while those in medium or low cost markets may be compensated at the lower end of  the range. Your recruiter can provide more details about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process. 

Please note that compensation details listed in US job postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.

We also offer a comprehensive benefits program with choice and flexibility in mind to help support the health, wealth, and overall well-being of our employees. Regular full time employees in the US are eligible for benefits on day one, including:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance

• A 401(k) plan with company matching and immediate vesting

• An Open Time Off policy (OTO) so you have maximum opportunity to disconnect and recharge, with no tenure-based vacation accruals required

• 80 hours of sick time upon hire, refreshed annually

• Up to 12 paid holidays per calendar year

• Sonos offers a generous paid leave program for new parents or to care for a family member with a serious health condition, as well as short- and long-term disability for your own medical condition

• Company-paid Disability, Life, and AD&D Insurance

• Voluntary benefits, including Voluntary Life, AD&D, Accident, and Pet Insurance

• Mental health benefits to support your holistic well-being

• A generous employee discount program & Sonos Radio HD - on us!

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.

Notice to U.S. Job Applicants: Sonos is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics.

Sonos is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please send an e-mail to [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.