Sr. Software Engineer

Job Description

The Opportunity

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to play a key technical leadership role on one of our core product areas. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who thrives on owning complex systems, making sound technical decisions, and partnering closely with product and engineering teams to deliver secure, reliable, customer-facing software.

You'll take responsibility for the technical health and security of major components and services, helping shape architecture, guiding implementation, and ensuring solutions balance security, performance, and usability. While this is an individual contributor role, it carries significant influence through design leadership, mentorship, and decision-making across teams.

Job Responsibilities

• Own and drive the design and evolution of complex, customer-facing software systems, from architecture through production.
• Act as a technical lead for your product or domain, providing clear guidance on design, implementation, and trade-offs.
• Partner with engineering, product, and security teams to align technical solutions with business goals and customer needs.
• Identify, assess, and manage security and technical risk, making defensible decisions with minimal guidance.
• Lead design and code reviews, setting a high bar for quality, maintainability, and secure engineering practices.
• Identify gaps in existing capabilities and drive improvements through code, automation, or architectural changes.
• Mentor and support other engineers, helping raise technical standards and grow expertise across the team.
• Contribute to cross-team initiatives and technical discussions, influencing solutions beyond your immediate team.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• Significant experience building customer-facing systems at scale.
• Strong experience with our core stack, including Java (backend services) and modern JavaScript with React (frontend). Familiarity with microfrontend architectures and deploying, operating, and supporting services in cloud environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Hands-on experience applying AI or machine learning in real products, including prompt design, model integration, or working with AI APIs. Familiarity with practical limitations such as hallucinations, latency, and data privacy.
• Experience helping teams adopt AI capabilities responsibly, including making architectural decisions, setting guardrails, and balancing experimentation with reliability and maintainability.
• Proven ability to design, implement, and evolve complex systems with an eye toward reliability, performance, and security.
• Strong understanding of secure software design and development practices, and how they reduce risk in real-world systems.
• Experience working in distributed, cloud-based environments and managing production systems.
• Ability to evaluate trade-offs across architecture, security, usability, and delivery timelines.
• Comfort influencing technical decisions across teams without formal authority.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical risk and solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• A track record of mentoring other engineers and contributing to a strong engineering culture.

Experience and Education

• Typically 10+ years of relevant software engineering experience, though impact and scope of responsibility matter more than years.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated ownership of complex systems or product areas in a production environment.

Why This Role Matters

In this role, you won't just deliver features. You'll help shape how systems are built, how risk is managed, and how teams make technical decisions. Your work will have a direct impact on product quality, customer trust, and the long-term health of our engineering platform.

About Adobe

Adobe empowers everyone to create through innovative platforms and tools that unleash creativity, productivity and personalized customer experiences. Adobe's industry-leading offerings including Adobe Acrobat Studio, Adobe Express, Adobe Firefly, Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Platform, Adobe Experience Manager, and GenStudio enable people and businesses to turn ideas into impact, powered by AI and driven by human ingenuity.

Our 30,000+ employees worldwide are creating the future and raising the bar as we drive the next decade of growth. We're on a mission to hire the very best and believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. At Adobe, we believe that great ideas can come from anywhere in the organization. The next big idea could be yours.

Let's Adobe together

At Adobe, we believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. Learn more about Adobe life, including our values and culture, focus on people, purpose and community, Adobe for All, comprehensive benefits programs, the stories we tell, the customers we serve, and how you can help us advance our mission of empowering everyone to create.

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 protected characteristic. Learn more.

Adobe aims to make our Careers website and recruiting process 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 +1 408-536-3015.

AI Use Guidelines for Interviews:
Our interviews are designed to reflect your own skills and thinking. The use of AI or recording tools during live interviews is not permitted unless explicitly invited by the interviewer or approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation. If these tools are used inappropriately or in a way that misrepresents your work, your application may not move forward in the process.

At Adobe, we empower employees to innovate with AI - and we look for candidates eager to do the same. As part of the hiring experience, we provide clear guidance on where AI is encouraged during the process and where it's restricted during live interviews. See how we think about AI in the hiring experience.

Expected Pay Range:

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.