Principal Forward Deployed Creative Technologist
Adobe
San Jose, California
Full-Time
$190,200
RemoteSenior
Every global brand is now a content factory — thousands of on-brand variations a quarter across static, video, and 3D, shipped in days not weeks. We embed with enterprise customers, learn their content supply chain end-to-end, and build the custom AI-powered workflows that get them there — on Adobe Firefly Services, Firefly Creative Production (our node-based workflow builder), and Adobe Brand Intelligence (ABI) for brand validation and compliance.
The base FDCT bench gets customers there; you set the bar they reach for. You take the engagements no one else can land — the Fortune 100 with the impossible timeline, the strategic account where the whole FDE motionhas toprove itself, the fractured stack where nothing works the way the docs say. The deal is signed, but the users never signed up for it — and here the politics are worse, the stack messier, the renewal bigger. You go in first; the bench follows.
You are the technical and creative anchor of the org — the team gets sharper around you, and when you're in the C-suite room, customers stop second-guess
ing the timeline.
We are not pre-sales. We are not consultants. We are technical creators who ship, who getused— and who make everyone around us better.
Land the accounts thathave toland.The strategic top-tier customer where the FDE motionhas toprove itself, the first engagement in a new vertical, the multi-year arc that defines the org's reputation. You earn adoption where it's hardest — the most resistant users, the most fractured stack — and turn an at-risk flagship into the account others want to be.
Set the technical and creative bar.Architecture, technology choices, reusable patterns at architect depth — yours to make and defend, and to adjust when the field proves you wrong. The P40 you onboard lands their first win faster because of the patterns you set.
Hold the C-suite room.CMOs, CIOs, CTOs, agency leadership. Translate AI and content-supply-chain complexity into something a board chair signs off on. Bring deals home; bring renewals home.
Set roadmap direction, not just feedback.When a product gap blocks adoption across accounts, you own the architecture of the workaround, take the gap upstream with the weight toactually movethe roadmap, and commit the fix yourself when that's faster. You chase cross-team dependencies until they move.
Lift the bench.Mentor the FDCTs around you — live working sessions, code reviews, internal masterclasses. Pair with a P40 in the morning and pitch a Fortune 100 CMO in the afternoon, and both walk away sharper.
Demo your own work— script, produce, edit. The demos you create become the org's reference demos.
The bar — what we filter hardest for:
You've earned adoption where it's hardest.Not one win — a track record of walking into the most resistant users, the most fractured stacks, and the highest-stakes renewals, and driving repeat, at-scale adoption anyway. You measure yourself in renewals saved and churns averted, not features shipped.
You set direction others follow.You've set technical or creative direction in a prior role — not just executed someone else's spec. Point to the "before me / after me" changeyoudrove, and to the people who got better because of you.
C-suite credibility.You hold the room with CMOs, CIOs, and CTOs and walk out with the deal or the renewal — translating tech to business value without losing the engineers in the room.
The floor — we don't teach this:
Creative content supply-chain craft at architect depth.Brand systems, design tokens, master-to-variant pipelines, brand-compliance gates, agency-to-brand handoff, the Figma / PSD / INDD → DAM → Workfront / Frame.io chains. You debug a fractured creative-ops setup faster than the customer's own team.
You still build it yourself.Architecture and production code that holds up under load — thinfront-ends, light back-ends, custom nodes, multi-system orchestration. You ship.
A public portfolio(link or PDF at application) — shipped creativeandtechnical work. Hard requirement; no portfolio, no review.
Force multipliers — real, but teachable:
Firefly Services, Firefly Creative Production, and Adobe Brand Intelligence mastery— you know what's possible, what's painful, what's a year out, and you ramp adjacent surfaces in days. Adobe ecosystem (AEM, Workfront, Frame.io, App Builder) and Figma plugin/API/MCP depth are pluses.
AI-native building with judgment, at scale.Cursor / Claude Code / Copilot daily — your prompts are the ones the team copies, and you catch bad output instantly. You explore the frontier (ComfyUI, n8n,LangGraph, MCPs) so the team can use what works.
High EQ, low ego. 12+ years straddling creative production and technical building. Travel 20–30%.
The order-taker at scale.You delivered the flagship, called it done, and treated whether it stuck — or renewed — as someone else's problem.
Single-track careers— software-engineering-only without creative depth, or creative-direction-only without shipping engineering. We need both, at architect depth.
"Thought leaders" without shipped work.Every line on your résumé comes with an artifact.
Senior ICs who've only executed.Fifteen years of someone else's spec — the title fits, the role doesn't.
"My portfolio is private / under NDA."If your entire body of work is invisible, come back when some of it isn't.
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.
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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:
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 position is $190,200 -- $360,500 annually. Pay within this range varies by work location and 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. In California, the pay range for this position is $248,900 - $360,500At 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.