Location: Finstock, Oxfordshire
Term: Permanent, Full Time
Salary: Dependent on experience + excellent benefits
About Sonnox
Encourage curiosity. Respect the craft.
At Sonnox, our mission is to build trusted, intelligent tools that empower creators to shape music with confidence and clarity. We foster a culture where we pull together, own it, and keep growing, combining a deep respect for the craft of audio with the curiosity needed to innovate.
As a proud member of the Focusrite Group, we are entering an ambitious new chapter of growth, seeking to evolve our brand and scale our impact with innovative new projects in intelligent DSP that offer our team unique opportunities to define the future of professional sound.
Role Purpose
We are looking for an Audio Product Designer to help shape the next generation of professional audio mixing and mastering plug‑ins. The role takes product direction and turns it into a finished plug‑in design, bridging the gap between product management and software development.
Working at the heart of our technical team, you will collaborate with the Brand & Product Lead, DSP experts, and software developers to translate product direction into actionable concepts that drive the research and development process. You will be responsible for bridging the gap between a functional test build and the finished product, obsessing over the UX details that elevate a prototype into a world‑class Sonnox experience. Success in this role requires seamless integration with both engineering and product stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
- Concept & UX Design: Translate briefs into design concepts—control sets, signal flow, workflow logic (wireframes)—with rationale for decisions.
- Prototyping & Validation: Build functional prototypes to validate workflow assumptions and demonstrate intent to the engineering team. Lead listening tests and user validation to iterate on the sonic and functional experience.
- Translate Research to Reality: Collaborate with the Lead DSP Developer to turn algorithmic concepts into high‑fidelity musical tools.
- The “Trusted Ear”: Collaborate with the Brand & Product Lead to identify the musical and product intent during the prototyping phase.
- Quality Control: Provide the critical link between math and music; when the logic is sound but the audio isn’t, you are responsible for diagnosing the issue and articulating the path forward.
- UI Execution: Collaborate with the Brand & Product Lead to define UI behaviour and interaction requirements; providing direction and design review to ensure visual execution matches the product intent; partner with Graphic Design talent to deliver a world‑class final aesthetic.
- QA & Beta Partnership: Support QA/support teams during test planning, beta feedback loops, and bug triage with context, intent, and prioritisation input.
- Knowledge Transfer & Documentation: Champion product knowledge by creating presets, co‑authoring intuitive user documentation, and leading internal training to ensure all teams are equipped to support new releases.
- Post‑Release Evolution: Contribute UX/audio design input to the planning of future updates as well as maintenance cycles and bug‑fix releases.
Skills and Experience Required
- Experience in product design, UX design, or audio software product development.
- Significant time spent in professional audio—production, mixing, mastering, or post— with a credible portfolio of work.
- Demonstrable experience designing software UXs, with examples of taking a project from concept to functional specification.
- Expert‑level experience using DAWs (e.g., Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live) and a deep familiarity with audio plug‑in categories (EQ, Dynamics, Reverb, etc.).
Technical Skills
- Proficient in at least one prototyping environment for audio: Max/MSP, Pure Data, Python with audio libraries, or similar.
- Strong understanding of audio signal flow and the technical principles of music production.
- Excellent technical writing skills for creating user‑facing and internal documentation.
Soft Skills
- Communication: Exceptional ability to communicate technical audio concepts clearly and effectively to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
- Collaboration: Ability to work independently while remaining deeply integrated within a collaborative, multi‑disciplinary team.
- Proactivity: A “can‑do” attitude with a willingness to explore unconventional design solutions while maintaining a focus on delivery.
Desirable Skills
- Familiarity with plugin development pipelines (JUCE framework, VST3/AU/AAX).
- Experience conducting formal user research or usability testing.
- Working knowledge of DSP concepts: filter design, dynamics, time and frequency domain manipulation.
- Knowledge of accessibility and inclusive design principles in software.
- Experience of Figma.
- Experience working directly with cross‑functional teams, particularly alongside DSP or software engineering.
Benefits and EEO Statement
The Focusrite Group is dedicated to building a great place to work and as an equal opportunity employer we are committed to Diversity and Inclusion. The group mission is to cultivate an equitable culture, internally and externally, where all people feel they are welcome, safe and positively represented, because at Focusrite they truly are.
Benefits include pension, private health cover and lifestyle benefits. Small company atmosphere with the support of a large group, Beautiful and peaceful location on The Cornbury Estate in Oxfordshire.
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