Lead Applied Researcher, AI Foundations – Adobe Express

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 users to easily build impressive designs, whether they are newcomers or experienced experts. Adobe Express provides a user-friendly platform driven by brand-new AI capabilities. The AI Foundations team sits at the core of this vision, driving innovation to make Adobe Express smarter, faster, and more adaptive. This team will play a pivotal role in transforming creative workflows by developing modular, reusable AI systems and crafting a robust Horizon AI Stack. Joining this team means shaping the future of creativity, solving complex engineering challenges, and delivering scalable AI solutions that redefine what’s possible in design. This is also an opportunity to be the founding leadership team of AI Foundations in Adobe Express!

What You’ll Do

• Develop and implement brand-new ML models in fields like computer vision, multimodal learning, and generative modeling.
• Lead and mentor a small team of applied researchers, providing technical direction and fostering a strong culture of innovation and experimentation.
• Contribute to foundational AI systems for intelligent assistance, layout automation, image generation, and motion storytelling.
• Design modular, reusable components that integrate with the Horizon AI Stack and scale across multiple creative workflows.
• Own the ML lifecycle—from ideation and prototyping to evaluation and deployment.
• Collaborate with Adobe Research, product, and platform teams to translate ideas into production-ready capabilities.
• Define and implement evaluation strategies that include both automated metrics and human-in-the-loop feedback mechanisms.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.
• 7+ years of industry experience in applied ML or AI-driven product development.
• Strong knowledge of ML frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX.
• Experience with models like transformers, diffusion models, or GANs.
• Skilled in software development and deploying ML systems at scale.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, distributed computing, and MLOps tools.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or technically guiding other researchers or engineers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in creative software, imaging, or media generation domains.
• Familiarity with agent-based systems, autonomous AI planning, or design assistants.
• Track record of translating research into production-ready systems.
• Publications in top-tier ML/CV/AI venues (e.g., NeurIPS, CVPR, ICML, SIGGRAPH).
• Experience with large foundation models or multimodal architectures.

What You Need to Succeed

• Curiosity about creativity and a passion for building tools that enhance it.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills with a bias toward action.
• Ability to clearly communicate technical ideas across functions and roles.
• Collaborative approach and ability to thrive in an iterative, fast-paced environment.
• Practical focus on impact, scalability, and user experience.
• Growth mindset and enthusiasm for learning.

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 $162,000 -- $301,200 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.

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.

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.

 

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