I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Sonos in Dec 2014
Interview
After submitting my resume to their online careers page, they emailed me back with an online "challenge" that consisted of recording and submitting a short (~3 min) video about myself. After that, they scheduled a 45 minute phone interview with one of their engineers. I did not get past that phone interview, but apparently the final step is an actual onsite interview at their offices. During the phone interview I was asked general questions about my education as well as items I had listed on my resume. As a college sophomore, I would recommend to other sophomore-level would-be interns to try a different company. They don't seem to have many spots for interns, and they told me that they have trouble fitting sophomores into teams because of their relatively limited knowledge. However, considering I was never asked any sort of technical or coding question during the phone interview, I find their process of finding out whether a candidate would make the cut quite dubious to say the least.
However, all in all it was a very pleasant interview process, and I will most likely apply for the internship again my Junior year once I have some higher level computer science courses under my belt (as well as hopefully another internship).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked what my favorite CS course was at the time, what CS courses I was looking forward to, and to elaborate on past work experience listed on my resume. Pretty standard stuff. Again, no coding or technical questions, but be prepared to elaborate on your resume in a technical and specific manner.
I applied online. I interviewed at Sonos (Boston, MA) in Jan 2025
Interview
recruiter call, easy technical interview, then three in depth interviews with team members. They were all very nice except for the boss, who didn't seem to take my experience seriously from the start. Got rejected in the very last round. could be related to their recent layoffs
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a project which you are least proud of
I applied for a React engineer role. During my interview with the hiring manager, I was told that the next step was going to be a coding challenge with another engineer and they will be testing me in React and hacking a project together.
During the coding portion, I wasn't tested in React but instead a LC medium problem. Testing a front-end engineer with LC problems is a complete waste of time in my opinion. I want to add that the interviewer did not seem excited as he didn't properly introduce himself or properly conclude the interview. He just abruptly said, "ok, talk to you later" and ended the call.
Culture here doesn't seem all that great judging by the interview.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Sonos in Mar 2022
Interview
Had a pretty decent experience with the on-site and the engineering team, but a bad experience with the recruiter - ultimately ghosted. It seems that the way Sonos interviews may vary from team to team - I interviewed for a *frontend* team.
Steps:
- Initial call with recruiter. The recruiter was late, and his answers were vague and unhelpful (maybe because he’d only been there for a couple months), and did not make me excited about joining Sonos. He was also confused by some info clearly listed on my resume, and then he gave me questionable advice on it. (I’ve gotten many interviews with other companies, so I don’t think it was a problem.)
- Tech screen - a simple assessment in javascript; the engineer was polite and kind, seemed personable.
- A prep call with the recruiter. He completely forgot about the call, and I had to email him later. When I did get a hold of him, he was not very helpful.
- On-site (split across two days, interviewing with members on the team):
- React exercise - implement a feature in an existing component
- Debugging exercise - fixing js code in browser environment
- Programming exercise (any language, not frontend specific)
- Design / system debugging - troubleshooting an issue in a system (based on the team’s actual architecture)
- Behavioral - 30m chat with manager (a series of quick “tell me about a time” questions)
I liked the team I met with - they all seemed engaged and enthusiastic about the new product they were working on. I thought they had a lengthy but reasonable and creative interview process that tested many different aspects of coding. One of my interviewers remarked that it was unfortunate that all my interview panel only consisted of white males.
Unfortunately, I never heard back from them. The very lengthy and unprofessional experience left with me with a sour taste, which was disappointing because I liked Sonos as a company. The experience with the team was pretty good though, so maybe the engineering culture is still nice to be part of…