Lead Forward Deployed Engineer, Creative AI

Adobe; New York (NY); On-site; USD 208,000 - 302,000; Full time

Job summary

Adobe in New York is seeking a technic-creative leader who builds end-to-end AI-powered creative workflows. You will bridge customer briefs with live production pipelines across Firefly Services, Photoshop, InDesign, and the Workflow Builder.

You’ll ship real solutions, not slides, and demonstrate tangible ROI for CMOs and creative teams. You will embed with enterprise customers, own end-to-end delivery, train teams, and deliver reusable patterns that accelerate future engagements.

Qualifications

• 5–10 years in creative production and technical building.
• Shipped both creative work and integrations/plugins.
• Fluency with Firefly Services and Workflow Builder.
• Portfolio showing shipped creative and technical work.
• Willingness to travel 10–20%.

Responsibilities

• Embed with enterprise customers to learn brand and workflows.
• Translate briefs into working creative workflows and APIs.
• Build front-end and back-end components to ship a URL this quarter.
• Develop custom workflow nodes and upstream reusable patterns.
• Integrate with customer stacks and manage edge cases.
• Train and hand off to customer teams for self-service.
• Demo work end-to-end with real creative outcomes.
• Feed the org with reusable templates and workflow assets.

Skills

Creative production

Technical building

Firefly Services

Workflow Builder

Portfolio

Public portfolio

Travel 10–20%

Tools

AEM

Workfront

Frame.io

App Builder

Job description

The Opportunity

Every global brand is now a content factory. They need thousands of on-brand asset variations every quarter — static, video, and increasingly 3D — and they need to ship them in days, not weeks. The customer who figures this out first wins the next decade of marketing.

We are the team that gets them there. We embed with enterprise customers, learn their content supply chain end-to-end, and craft custom AI-powered creative workflows on top of Adobe Firefly Services and Firefly Creative Production (our node-based workflow builder). We are not pre-sales engineers. We are not consultants. We are technical creators who ship.

You will own the bridge between what the customer's CMO sketched on a whiteboard and what their creative team actually uses on Monday morning.

Then you'll bring what you learned back so the next FDCT moves faster.

This role is for someone who is maniacally focused on customer value. If the customer cannot point to time saved, dollars earned, or campaigns shipped because of your work, nothing else matters.

What you'll do

• Embed with enterprise customers. Learn their brand, their creative team, their content supply chain, and the metrics their CMO cares about. Become a trusted advisor in 90 days.
• Translate a customer brief into a working creative workflow. Compose Firefly Services APIs (Firefly, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Express, Lightroom, Substance 3D, Audio/Video) and Workflow Builder nodes into something that actually runs. Build Figma plugins or design-system integrations when the customer's creative team works there.
• Build thin front-ends (or conversational experiences) and light back-ends (App Builder, Azure Functions, AWS Lambda). Ship a working URL the customer uses this quarter, not a PowerPoint.
• Build custom workflow nodes. when existing ones fall short. Push reusable ones upstream.
• Integrate with the customer's stack — AEM Assets, Workfront, Frame.io, their DAM, their PIM, their brand portal. Negotiate auth, debug API quirks, own the edge cases.
• Train the customer's team. Document. Hand off cleanly so the customer self-serves when you rotate to the next engagement.
• Demo your work yourself — script, produce, edit. Show real creative outcomes, not abstract slides.
• Feed the org. Reusable patterns become shared repo templates, workflow templates, or upstream WFB nodes. Every engagement makes the next one faster.

What you'll bring

• 5–10 years straddling creative production AND technical building. You have shipped both: real creative work (motion, design, video, 3D, photography, brand systems) AND real technical work (apps, integrations, plugins, automation).
• Creative content supply chain fluency. You understand how briefs become assets, how brand systems and design tokens work, how master files become channel variants, how creative teams hand off through Figma / PSD / INDD to DAM and review-and-approval. This is the skill we cannot teach and the one we filter hardest for.
• Firefly Services + Workflow Builder fluency — or evidence you ramp on a new API surface in days, not months. Adobe ecosystem depth (AEM, Workfront, Frame.io, App Builder) is a strong plus, as is Figma plugin / API fluency.

• Vibe-coding with judgment. You use Cursor / Claude Code / Copilot daily and ship fast. You also know when AI output is wrong, when error handling is missing, when the prompt needs more context. Production code, not prototype-only.

• Extreme ownership and a GSD attitude. When the integration breaks before a CMO demo, you fix it — you don't escape. You own outcomes end-to-end, from broken auth to a missed brand-compliance check. You ship ugly first and refuse to let process slow you down.

• Extreme customer orientation. You hold the room with CMOs, creative directors, and heads of IT. You hear a customer pain and respond with a credible, impact-focused, creative solution — not a science experiment. You translate tech to ROI without losing the engineers in the room.

• A great nose for the money. You instinctively connect what you build to business outcomes the customer's exec sponsor cares about — time-to-activation, cost per variant, brand-compliance pass rate, campaign velocity.

• A passion for coding and tinkering. A deep interest in generative AI and creative workflows. You explore adjacent orchestration tools — ComfyUI for visual workflow prototyping, n8n / Zapier / Power Automate for low-code connectors, LangGraph/LangChain for agentic flows — because that's how you stay sharp.

• A public portfolio. — link or PDF at application. Must show shipped creative work AND shipped technical artifacts. This is a hard requirement; applications without a portfolio will not be reviewed.

• High EQ, low ego. Willingness to travel 10–20%.

What we're not looking for

• Backend-only or distributed-systems engineers — no creative practitioner background.
• Pure designers or creatives — can't stand up a working integration.
• ML / AI researchers — chasing frontier-model R&D, not customer outcomes.
• PMs / consultants who don't ship — every person on this team writes code AND produces creative work themselves.

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 [e-mail] or call [phone].

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 $159,200 -- $301,600 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 $208,300 - $301,600

In New York, the pay range for this position is $208,300 - $301,600

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.