Principal Software Development Engineer

Sonos • Boston, MA

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

As a Principal Embedded Software Engineer on the Player API & Control team, you will lead performance-critical and customer-facing initiatives across the Sonos player stack. You will have a direct impact on the responsiveness, scalability, and reliability of core playback and control experiences. This role sits at the intersection of embedded systems, distributed communication protocols, telemetry, and cross-platform API design. You will work across teams including App, Cloud, Security, Data, and QA to identify performance bottlenecks, design architectural improvements, and ensure measurable customer impact. If you love solving deep technical challenges, analyzing real-world data, and delivering meaningful improvements to millions of listeners, we want to talk with you. This is a hybrid position, allowing for a combination of remote work and in-office collaboration. Qualified applicants must live within commuting distance of our Boston or Seattle office locations and should expect to be in office a minimum of 3 days per week.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of experience in embedded or systems-level software engineering.
• Strong proficiency in C++.
• Experience working with REST and/or WebSocket-based APIs.
• Experience debugging complex, multi-threaded systems.
• Experience working with telemetry, instrumentation, or performance measurement frameworks.
• Deep understanding of networking fundamentals (TLS/mTLS, WebSocket, HTTP, LAN communication).
• This role requires commuting distance to our main engineering office in Seattle or Boston.
• Authorized to work for any US employer, both now and in the future.

Nice To Haves

• Experience optimizing embedded systems for performance and memory constraints.
• Experience with secure communication protocols (TLS, DTLS, authentication flows).
• Experience analyzing large-scale telemetry datasets to drive engineering decisions.
• Familiarity with distributed systems and device-to-device communication.
• Experience with CI/CD systems and modern Git workflows.
• Familiarity with Sonos architecture or similar control-plane systems.
• Experience presenting technical proposals to senior engineering leadership.

Responsibilities

• Lead performance and reliability initiatives across the Sonos APIs.
• Work on Player Control components and participate in developing software for enabling new products.
• Collaborate across teams to mentor local junior peers and facilitate internal development and testing.
• Participate in all aspects of the software development life cycle including planning, requirements, development, and testing.
• Act as a customer advocate by participating in the product definition and planning process.
• Support service initiatives that adhere to best practices for security, scalability, cost, and overall performance.
• Identify and eliminate latency bottlenecks in player-to-app and player-to-cloud communication.
• Design and implement architectural improvements (e.g., async command execution, protocol optimizations, reduced handshake overhead).
• Use telemetry and customer data to correlate code changes to real-world impact.
• Partner cross-functionally with App, UX, PM, and Data teams to improve end-to-end user experience.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, architecture discussions, and root cause investigations.
• Proactively investigate system-level issues before they escalate into customer-impacting problems.
• Present performance findings and architectural proposals to engineering leadership and broader forums.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• A 401(k) plan with company matching and immediate vesting
• An Open Time Off policy (OTO)
• 80 hours of sick time upon hire, refreshed annually
• Up to 12 paid holidays per calendar year
• Generous paid leave program for new parents or to care for a family member with a serious health condition
• 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!

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: Associate degree