Principal Scientist

Our Company

Changing the world through digital experiences is what Adobe's all about. We give everyone-from emerging artists to global brands-everything they need to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences! We're passionate about empowering people to create beautiful and powerful images, videos, and apps, and transform how companies interact with customers across every screen.

We're on a mission to hire the very best and are committed to creating exceptional employee experiences where everyone is respected and has access to equal opportunity. We realize that new ideas can come from everywhere in the organization, and we know the next big idea could be yours!

The Opportunity

Adobe Express enables all users, whether individuals or large organizations, to effortlessly produce impressive content. The AI Foundations team constructs a flexible, scalable AI framework that drives creativity at scale in design, imaging, motion, and personalization.

We're looking for a Principal Scientist to build and implement the AI framework for Adobe Express, merging strong ML skills with proficiency in distributed systems, data architecture, and large-scale service development.

You'll define and invent the end-to-end foundation that brings Agentic AI, Create AI, Imaging AI, Motion AI, and Personalization AI to life - spanning model orchestration, inference systems, data pipelines, caching and storage layers, session analytics, and continuous evaluation frameworks.

This role blends applied research and engineering leadership - ideal for someone who can connect modeling innovation with production-grade systems that deliver real-time, customer-facing intelligence at scale.

What You'll Do

• Architect and evolve the complete AI stack for Adobe Express - covering Agentic AI, Construct AI, Imaging AI, Motion AI, and Personalization AI.
• Develop and operationalize end-to-end systems - integrating microservices, data pipelines, LLM orchestration layers, in-house and third-party models, databases, caches, session analytics, and evaluation systems into a cohesive architecture.
• Develop large-scale data and inference infrastructure to support model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment - employing Spark, Kafka, Flink, and other distributed frameworks.
• Develop high-performance runtime services for inference and orchestration with strong observability, fault tolerance, and latency guarantees.
• Apply strong caching and storage tactics to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness for various AI workloads.
• Lead development of experimentation and evaluation systems, encompassing session-level analytics, feedback loops, and quality metrics that drive continuous improvement.
• Work closely with applied research, product, and platform teams to implement LLMs and other AI models into customer-facing services.
• Drive architectural strategy for Express AI Foundations - connecting ML models, reasoning engines, and data streams into adaptive, intelligent systems.
• Mentor senior engineers and scientists, encouraging excellence across architecture, experimentation, and AI system composition.

What You'll Bring

• 10+ years of experience in large-scale distributed systems AI infrastructure, or ML platform engineering.
• Deep understanding of ML and LLM fundamentals - training, fine-tuning, deployment, and evaluation workflows.
• Proven expertise in building and scaling data pipelines, real-time streaming systems, and event-driven architectures (Kafka, Spark, Flink, etc.).
• Strong background in caching strategies, database development, and performance optimization for large-scale serving systems.
• Hands-on experience with LLM orchestration frameworks, model routing, and multi-model inference.
• Proficiency in Python, Java, C++, or Go, with an emphasis on distributed systems, cloud-native deployment, and performance tuning.
• Familiarity with Agentic AI patterns - reasoning loops, memory persistence, task decomposition, and multi-agent coordination.
• Skill to merge engineering precision with practical research understanding, connecting prototyping and production.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience influencing cross-functional technical direction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related technical field.
• Experience architecting AI assistants, build agents, or multimodal creative systems.
• Exposure to Generative AI (LLMs, diffusion, or multimodal architectures).
• Experience with MLOps pipelines, feature stores, and model registries.
• Track record of open-source contributions, publications, or conference presentations.

Why Adobe

At Adobe, we're crafting the future of creativity through intelligence. The AI Foundations team combines the agility of a startup with the scale and mission of Adobe - constructing the AI stack for Adobe Express, spanning Agentic, Design, Imaging, Motion, and Personalization AI. Join us to develop the infrastructure that brings adaptive, autonomous, and human-centered AI to millions of creators worldwide!

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.

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