Sonos Cuts Top Design and Product Executives as Part of Layoffs

Sonos Inc. has pushed out some of its top design and product management executives as part of job cuts in recent weeks, raising questions about the company’s ability to develop breakthrough products beyond its short-term hardware road map of safe bets.

The cuts include Dana Krieger, a vice president of design who worked as Sonos for 12 years, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Also leaving are Kate Wojogbe, a top user experience executive who was with the company for nearly 10 years, and Scott Fink, a 15-year veteran who helped spearhead the company’s home theater work, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unannounced personnel moves.

“The design team is a little smaller now,” Edward Mitchell, a departing designer who spent nearly 12 years at the Goleta, California-based company, wrote on LinkedIn. “Nearly the entire UX Research team was let go,” Rebecca Phillips, a user experience researcher, said in another post. Kristen Leclerc, who most recently served as the head of that department, was laid off after eight years.

Sonos confirmed the reductions late last month, but the details of the cuts and the impact on the company were previously unreported. A Sonos spokesperson told Bloomberg News that the company maintains a deep bench of senior talent across the disciplines that were affected and said that user research continues.

Other teams were also affected. Michelle Enright, a senior design director who oversaw the company’s packaging and product sustainability efforts, was let go after a 14-year tenure. Sara Lincoln, a longtime hardware product manager, had spent 11 years at Sonos before being laid off.

Internally, Chief Executive Officer Tom Conrad framed the changes as a way to reduce management layers and make the company more competitive. “I want a Sonos that moves with more conviction and more velocity,” he said in a memo seen by Bloomberg News. “Fewer months in conference rooms. More prototypes in our labs. More decisions made and executed. More exceptional products in the world for our customers.”

The Sonos spokesperson said in late June that the job cuts were unrelated to artificial intelligence — even after Conrad said during a May earnings call that “AI is already transforming how we operate internally, from the way we build software to how we execute marketing to how I run the company.”

Read More: How Sonos CEO Tom Conrad Is Reshaping the Audio Brand After App Disaster

Some longtime employees disagree with Conrad’s explanation and see the reductions as a cost-cutting measure now that Sonos’ product pipeline is mostly settled on for the next couple of years. They also question the timing, given that the company recently touted revenue growth, and are alarmed about the loss of institutional knowledge and culture setters. After a disastrous software launch weighed on Sonos’ business for the better part of two years, deep cuts in user research could also be cause for concern.

The people also believe that while the company’s software and hardware divisions were largely spared, eliminating so many high-profile roles vital to product creation and development could have additional unforeseen consequences on Sonos’ ability to roll out new devices on schedule and at the planned quality.

Chris Kallai, the company’s vice president of product creation who has been with the company 18 years, was deeply frustrated by cuts to the product and design teams, according to people familiar with the situation. He remains at Sonos for now but is considering leaving. Another individual is currently overseeing hardware on an interim basis.

The upcoming road map includes a second-generation version of the Sonos Ace headphones and revamped home theater solutions, the people said. Meanwhile, numerous employees who focused their work on canceled ventures like a streaming video player and products in other new categories have either left Sonos or been laid off in recent months.

Sonos has largely stabilized its business after nearly torpedoing its reputation with the buggy app overhaul in 2024. Conrad was appointed CEO last year and has made it his mission to earn back the trust of customers. Since his arrival, Sonos has made significant progress: The software is working smoother, and recent products like the Sonos Play wireless speaker have been met with positive reviews.

More new hardware is still needed. The brand is facing a fresh wave of competition from rivals like Bose Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Group Corp., who seized on Sonos’ decision to pause new consumer hardware for over a year as it tackled the app crisis.

The company reported 8% year-over-year revenue growth in the fiscal quarter that ended in March, but it also warned about challenges stemming from rising costs related to the ongoing memory supply crunch.

Conrad has said that his top priority is selling consumers on the unique strengths of Sonos’ whole-home audio platform more than any individual device. “The Sonos system is the product,” he said in May. “Each device we add and each improvement we make increases the value of the whole system, compounding over time as customers expand across rooms and use cases.”