Senior/Staff Software Engineer

Adobe

Senior/Staff Software Engineer

San Jose, CA
Full Time
Paid
  • Responsibilities

    JOB LEVEL
    P50
    EMPLOYEE ROLE
    Individual Contributor

    The Opportunity

    Join Adobe's Search, Discovery and Content Intelligence (SDC) team, where your work will directly impact millions of creative professionals and users worldwide. Our technology is fundamental to Adobe's Cloud ecosystem, enabling seamless access to digital assets, creative content, and collaborative tools across flagship products including Adobe Express, Stock, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe.com, and Acrobat.

    As creative workflows evolve, users need intuitive, intelligent ways to discover, search, and interact with their vast collections of brushes, colors, images, videos, documents, and more. We're building the next generation of AI-powered search, recommendation, and assistive experiences that understand creative intent across all modalities.

    What You'll Build

    You'll architect and develop AI-first agentic discovery that leverage multimodal language and vision models, transformers, semantic conversational sear ch, and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to create industry-leading creative experiences. Our work spans multi-modal understanding (text, image, document, video), neural agents, and sophisticated recommendation systems that enhance creative efficiency for designers, marketers, and content creators.

    Key Responsibilities

    • Design and implement scalable, fault-tolerant multi-modal and multi-lingual agentic search and recommendation systems

    • Build intelligent conversational workflows that understand creative intent and context

    • Architect real-time indexing infrastructure capable of handling billions of images, documents, videos, and creative assets

    • Develop high-performance REST services and APIs for seamless integration across Adobe's product ecosystem

    • Leverage advanced AI technologies including LLMs, transformers, and neural networks to power search and recommendation engines

    • Implement sophisticated ranking algorithms and relevance models for creative content discovery

    • Optimize search quality across multiple languages and content modalities with AB Experimentation and User Behavior analysis

    Required Qualifications

    • Degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field or equivalent experience

    • 8+ years of software engineering experience with proven track record in large-scale distributed systems

    • Deep expertise in search technologies: Elasticsearch, Lucene, information retrieval algorithms

    • Strong background in machine learning, particularly in NLP, computer vision, or recommendation systems

    • Expertise in vector databases, semantic search

    • Proficiency in Java, Python, and modern software development frameworks

    • Experience with cloud platforms, microservices architecture, and high-availability systems

    • Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives and mentor engineering teams

    Preferred Qualifications

    • Experience in developing conversational search workflows in creative domain

    • 5 years of experience in a technical leadership role leading project teams and setting technical direction.

    • 3 years of experience working in a complex, matrixed organization

    Technology Stack

    Core Technologies: Java, Spring Boot, Elasticsearch, HBase, Apache Storm AI/ML: PyTorch , TensorFlow, Transformers, GPT models, Sensei ML Platform Infrastructure: Vector Search, SQS/ HBase , REST APIs, Microservices Data Processing: Real-time streaming, Content processing pipelines

    What We Offer

    • Opportunity to shape the future of creative technology used by millions worldwide

    • Collaborative environment with world-class engineers and researchers

    • Access to innovative AI/ML resources and Adobe's extensive creative platform Competitive compensation, equity, and comprehensive benefits

    • Professional development opportunities and conference participation

    Ready to revolutionize how creators discover and interact with digital content? Join us in building the intelligent foundation that powers creativity at Adobe.

    Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets, and we pay differently based on those defined markets. The U.S. pay range for this positionis $162,000 -- $301,200 annually. Paywithin this range varies by work locationand may also depend on job-related knowledge, skills,and experience. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the job location during the hiring process.

    At Adobe, for sales roles starting salaries are expressed as total target compensation (TTC = base + commission), and short-term incentives are in the form of sales commission plans. Non-sales roles starting salaries are expressed as base salary and short-term incentives are in the form of the Annual Incentive Plan (AIP).

    In addition, certain roles may be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of a new hire equity award.

    State-Specific Notices:

    California :

    Fair Chance Ordinances

    Adobe will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and “fair chance” ordinances.

    Colorado:

    Application Window Notice

    If this role is open to hiring in Colorado (as listed on the job posting), the application window will remain open until at least the date and time stated above in Pacific Time, in compliance with Colorado pay transparency regulations. If this role does not have Colorado listed as a hiring location, no specific application window applies, and the posting may close at any time based on hiring needs.

    Massachusetts:

    Massachusetts Legal Notice

    It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

    Internal Opportunities

    Creativity, curiosity, and constant learning are celebrated aspects of your career growth journey. We’re glad that you’re pursuing a new opportunity at Adobe!

    Put your best foot forward:

    1. Update your Resume/CV and Workday profile - don’t forget to include your uniquely ‘Adobe’ experiences and volunteer work.

    2. Visit the Internal Mobility page on Inside Adobe to learn more about the process and set up a job alert for roles you’re interested in.

    3. Check out these tips to help you prep for interviews.

    4. If you are applying for a role outside of your current country, ensure you review the International Resources for Relocating Employees on Inside Adobe, including the impacts to your Benefits, AIP, Equity & Payroll .

    Once you apply for a role via Workday, the Talent Team will reach out to you within 2 weeks. If you move into the official interview process with the hiring team, make sure you inform your manager so they can champion your career growth.

    At Adobe, you will be immersed in an exceptional work environment that is recognized around the world. You will also be surrounded by colleagues who are committed to helping each other grow through our unique Check-In approach where ongoing feedback flows freely. If you’re looking to make an impact, Adobe's the place for you. Discover what our employees are saying about their career experiences on the Adobe Life blog and explore the meaningful benefits we offer.

    Adobe is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other applicable characteristics protected by law. Learn more.

    Adobe aims to make Adobe.com accessible to any and all users. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation to navigate our website or complete the application process, email accommodations@adobe.com or call (408) 536-3015.