Principal Forward Deployed Engineer, Creative AI

Adobe; New York (NY); On-site; USD 190,000 - 361,000; Full time

Job summary

Adobe is seeking a Principal FDCT to lead the most strategic customer engagements, set the technical bar for architecture and patterns, and translate complex AI and content-supply-chain concepts for C-level stakeholders. You will mentor the FDCT bench and shape the org's reputation with public-facing demonstrations and leadership.

You will drive multi‑year engagements, own customer value, and influence product roadmaps while ensuring compelling demos and high-impact outcomes.

Qualifications

• 12+ years straddling creative production and technical building
• Public portfolio showing shipped creative and shipped technical artifacts with at least one of: conference talks, books, awards, or notable credits
• Ability to translate tech to business value for C-suite stakeholders

Responsibilities

• Own the hardest engagements with strategic, multi-year scope
• Set the technical bar with architectural decisions and reusable patterns
• Hold the C-suite room and translate AI/content-supply-chain ideas for executive sign-off
• Mentor and grow the FDCT bench through sessions and reviews
• Translate customer brief into working workflows using API integrations and tooling
• Publicly demonstrate work as reference demos

Skills

Creative production

Technical building

Public speaking

C‑suite presence

Mentoring

Strategy & roadmap

Tools

Firefly Services

Workflow Builder

Figma integrations

ComfyUI

n8n

LangGraph

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.

The base FDCT bench gets them there. The Principal FDCT sets the bar.

You are the technical and creative anchor of the FDE org. You take the hardest customer engagements — the Fortune 100 brand with the impossible timeline, the strategic account where the CMO's job depends on the outcome, the messy enterprise stack where nothing works the way the docs say. You walk into the C‑suite room and customers stop second-guessing the timeline. You mentor the rest of the FDCT bench and the team gets sharper around you.

You have a name in this space. You've spoken at Adobe MAX, written the book, shipped the indie tool, or have a brand/VFX reel that headlines its own conference. When customers Google you, they find proof.

This role is for someone who is maniacally focused on customer value, who has the rare combination of deep creative craft AND production engineering chops AND C‑suite presence — and who has earned the public profile to prove it.

What you'll do

• Own the hardest engagements. The strategic top-tier customer where the FDE motion has to land. The first engagement in a new vertical. The multi-year arc that defines the FDE org's reputation. You go in first; the bench follows.
• Set the technical bar. Architectural decisions, technology choices, reusable patterns — your call. Defend it when challenged. Adjust it when the field proves you wrong.
• Hold the C‑suite room. CMOs, CIOs, CTOs, agency leadership. Translate complex AI and content-supply-chain ideas into something a board chair signs off on. Bring deals home; bring renewals home.
• Mentor and grow the FDCT bench. Lift the average. Make the P40 hire you onboard land their first customer faster than the last one. Run live working sessions, code reviews, and internal masterclasses.
• Translate customer brief → working workflow at the depth and ambiguity level that breaks others. Firefly Services APIs, Workflow Builder nodes, custom plugins, Figma integrations, multi-system orchestration. Show the rest of the team what good looks like.
• Be the public face. Speak at Adobe MAX. Write on the Adobe Blog. Host live demos at customer advisory boards. Represent the FDE org externally and attract talent through your reputation.
• Influence Adobe's product roadmap. Bring real field signal into product, engineering, and research conversations. Make the hard call about what gets built next.
• Demo your work yourself — script, produce, edit. The demos you create become the org's reference demos.

What you'll bring

• 12+ years straddling creative production AND technical building. Recognized creative work (motion, video, design, 3D, VFX, brand systems, post-production) AND named technical artifacts (indie tool, plugin ecosystem, published architecture, shipped product). At scale.
• Public proof, multiple forms. Application requires a public portfolio (link or PDF) showing shipped creative AND shipped technical artifacts. PLUS at least one named‑reputation marker:
  • Adobe MAX / NAB / SIGGRAPH / Cannes Lions / peer‑tier conference speaker
  • Book or major‑publication authorship
  • Widely‑recognized brand campaign or VFX / post‑production credit (your name on the work)
  • Industry award (Webby, Emmy, Cynopsis, VES, etc.)
  • Indie tool or plugin with shipped user base in the tens of thousands+
  • Patent in applied creative AI / pipeline / workflow (publicly visible)
  • Vision‑setting track record.
  • Creative content supply chain fluency at architect depth.
  • Firefly Services + Workflow Builder mastery.
  • Vibe‑coding with judgment at scale.
  • Extreme ownership and a GSD attitude — at a scope where the FDCT bench, the customer's exec team, and Adobe product leadership all look to you. The hardest call lands on your desk, and you make it.
  • Extreme customer orientation + C‑suite presence. You hold the room with C‑suite stakeholders. Translate tech to business value in a way that closes deals and renews them. Credible, impact‑focused, creative solutions — never a science experiment.
  • A great nose for the money. You instinctively see the multi‑million‑dollar lever inside a fuzzy customer brief, and you architect for it.
  • A passion for coding and tinkering — ComfyUI, n8n, LangGraph, custom node ecosystems. You explore the frontier so the rest of the team can use what works.
  • Mentor instinct. You make others around you better. You can pair with a P40 in the morning and pitch to a Fortune 100 CMO in the afternoon, and both walk away saying it was the best hour of their week.
  • High EQ, low ego. Willingness to travel 20–30%.

What we're not looking for

• 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 resume must come with an artifact.
• ML / AI researchers — chasing frontier‑model R&D, not customer outcomes.
• Senior ICs who have never set direction. If you have only executed someone else's spec for 15 years, the title fits but the role doesn't.

Let’s Adobe together

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.

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 $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 - $360,500.

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.