Sonic Experiences Group Manager

Description

Human Interface Design Overview

Drive the Future of Automotive Experiences, Join Our Human Interface Design Team!
Are you passionate about crafting intuitive, beautiful, and human-centered digital experiences across vehicles, web, and mobile platforms? Our Human Interface Design (HID) team is redefining how people interact with automotive technology both inside and outside the vehicle. From in-vehicle displays to connected apps and foundational design systems across software and hardware, we create seamless experiences that feel effortless, engaging, and safe.

Work Arrangement: This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to the office three times per week or other frequency dictated by the business.

What We Do

• Understand Drivers & Passengers: We dive deep into user research to uncover real needs and behaviors on the road and beyond.
• Design Across Platforms: From infotainment systems to mobile apps and web portals to hardware switch configurations, we build cohesive digital ecosystems that connect users to their vehicles and services.
• Build Strong Foundations: We develop scalable design systems and interaction models that ensure consistency, accessibility, and innovation across all touchpoints.
• Innovate Interactions: We define how users navigate voice controls, advanced driver-assist features, and connected services.
• Champion Safety & Accessibility: Every design is inclusive, distraction-free, and aligned with global safety standards.
• Collaborate Across Teams: We work hand-in-hand with engineers, product managers, interior and exterior designers and UX researchers to bring ideas to life.

Why Join Us?

• Impact at Scale: Your designs will shape the driving and digital experience for millions of users worldwide.
• Creative Freedom: Explore bold ideas and push the boundaries of automotive and digital design.
• Continuous Growth: Learn from a team of experts and stay ahead in the rapidly evolving mobility and tech landscape.
• User-First Culture: Every decision starts with empathy for the driver, passenger, and digital user.

If you're ready to design the future of mobility we'd love to meet you!

The Role

Sonic Experience Group Manager

The Sonic Experience Group resides in Human Interface Design under Vehicle OS; this is where GM's UX brand storytelling becomes real inside the digital cabin. Sound is one of the most emotional and instinctive layers of the vehicle experience. From UI cues to EV/AV exterior sounds to interior ambiance, the Sonic Experience Group defines how GM's brands are heard and felt. This team ensures every sound inside and outside the vehicle is intentional, recognizable, and aligned with brand character.

This role shapes how GM's brands feel and communicate at an emotional auditory level. The right leader will elevate sonic identity into a defining strength for GM's digital future. As the Sonic Experience Group Manager, you'll lead the team responsible for GM's entire auditory identity. Your team will shape brand-specific chimes, UX feedback cues, haptic tones, interior soundscapes, and exterior EV/AV audio signatures. You'll define sonic characteristics that differentiate each GM brand, partnering closely with Identity, Motion, Product teams, and engineering to ensure auditory experiences enhance clarity, emotion, and safety. You'll also support the creation of audio for storytelling, leadership decks, and vision videos.

The culture here is experimental, collaborative, and rooted in craft. Designers on this team bring a blend of musicality, technical precision, and product intuition. They care deeply about how sound influences behavior, emotion, and brand perception. We're looking for a leader who values exploration as much as rigor, who can guide designers through complex sound design challenges, and who understands the strategic role sound plays in a multi-modal identity system.

This is not a maintenance or marketing role; it's a leadership position shaping how GM's brands express themselves in every interaction a driver sees and feels. The right leader will understand this is a long-term responsibility with a lasting impact on GM's future.

Your Primary Focus

• Build and Curate the Sonic Team

Scale, onboard, mentor and grow this team into a trusted team of experts instilling repeatable, achievable and successful practices.

• Sound Design

You are craftsman of the sonic vocabulary that emotes how GM vehicles sound as digital products and physical machines at rest and in motion.

• UX Sound Strategy

Articulate, Craft and own the UX sound strategy side by side with your team.

What You'll Create

• GM Sound Design

All UI and system-level vehicle audio.

• Brand-Specific Sonic Characteristics

Tone, texture, palette, and emotional identity for each brand.

• Chimes + UX Audio

Alerts, confirmations, error states, actuations, interactions, artificial intelligence, assistance etc.

• Exterior Vehicle Sounds

Pedestrian alerts, compliance sounds, propulsion signatures.

• Pedestrian Sounds

Regulatory and brand-aligned audible cues for EVs.

• Autonomous Vehicle Sounds

Communication, anticipation, navigation feedback.

• Interior Cabin Sounds

Ambient audio, UI soundscapes, feedback audio, feature audio.

• Support for Video Creation

Mixes, soundscapes, audio cues, environmental sound design for leadership or storytelling.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• 10+ years of professional experience in Sound Design and or UX Design
• A portfolio of work that showcases your ability to tell stories through your craft. You must be able to create in addition to leading the team, lead by example.
• Self-starter with strong autonomy. You're comfortable identifying problem areas, tackling them independently, and sharing your findings. You create clarity rather than waiting for it to be provided.
• Deep understanding of human interface design best practices.
• You can iterate quickly, form a clear design point of view, and navigate cross-functional feedback.
• You can sell sound, you can craft a narrative, you are highly descriptive to communicate and convey why one sound execution works over another. You are willed to champion a design and can back it up with clear discernible examples, not opinions.
• Strong design sensibility, passion for brand, love for cars. You love the process of design but understand the best brand and UX results utilize restraint and balance.
• High comfort level with technical complexity. You pick up new terminology quickly and have experience working with engineers, product managers, and other partners to understand requirements and functionality.

What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• 3+ years of professional experience as a people leader of a team
• Examples of global sound executions and how and why they differ
• Sound systems, principles and rules established and launched as guidelines
• Experience designing content for non-traditional interfaces (e.g., automotive, voice, or wearable devices)

Portfolio Submission

To be considered for this position, you will need to submit a portfolio in addition to your resume and profile. We strongly recommend linking your online portfolio in the "website" section of the application. If your portfolio is not available online, please follow the instructions below to upload your portfolio as a separate attachment as you did with the resume. Please NO dropbox files or Google docs.

To submit portfolio file:

Save your portfolio as a PDF document. Name your portfolio your LAST NAME_FIRST NAME. Example: Candidate name is John Smith. Portfolio PDF file name is: Smith_John.pdf Upload as an attachment - you may have to condense the file.

Relocation: This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.

Sponsorship: GM DOES NOT PROVIDE IMMIGRATION-RELATED SPONSORHOP FOR THIS ROLE. DO NOT APPLY FOR THIS ROLE IF YOU WILL NEED GM IMMIGRATION SPONSORSHIP NOW OR IN THE FUTURE.

About GM

Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.

Why Join Us

We believe we all must make a choice every day - individually and collectively - to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.

Total Rewards | Benefits Overview

From day one, we're looking out for your well-being-at work and at home-so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources .

Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)

General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.

All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.

We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire .

Accommodations

General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us [email protected] or call us at 800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.

About GM

Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.

Why Join Us

We believe we all must make a choice every day - individually and collectively - to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.

Total Rewards | Benefits Overview

From day one, we're looking out for your well-being-at work and at home-so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.

Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)

General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.

All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.

We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.

Accommodations

General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us [email protected] or call us at 800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.

Client-provided location(s): Warren, MI

Job ID: General_Motors-JR-202524352

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

Posted: 2025-12-23T00:14:01