Senior Staff Applied Scientist - AI/ML

Adobe; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 243,300 - 352,350; Full time

Job summary

Adobe seeks Applied Scientists at varying levels to drive AI innovations from research to product validation. You will design and evaluate multimodal architectures, focusing on image/video editing, while directly contributing to product strategy and technical mentorship.

You will build end-to-end model pipelines, curate data, and push novel methods from concept to deployment, balancing rigor with practical impact in a fast-paced team.

Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in CS/ML/AI or related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• Hands-on experience developing transformer, diffusion, or multimodal architectures.
• Strong Python and PyTorch skills, including research-quality model code.
• Experience with end-to-end model development, including data preparation, training, evaluation, and failure analysis.
• Experience with post-training techniques such as supervised fine-tuning, preference optimization, reinforcement learning, alignment.
• Ability to communicate technical decisions, experimental findings, and measurable impact effectively.
• Candidates will be evaluated on demonstrated technical depth and impact rather than years of experience.

Responsibilities

• Identify research advances with potential to create differentiated Adobe product capabilities.
• Own or contribute to applied research from problem formulation through prototype validation.
• Curate and analyze multimodal training data, including sampling, filtering, deduplication, synthetic-data generation, and quality measurement.
• Design and optimize multimodal architectures, including vision encoders, modality projectors, and cross-modal attention.
• Build rigorous evaluation pipelines covering model quality, robustness, safety, latency, scalability, and product usefulness.
• Diagnose model failures through ablation studies, error analysis, and data- and architecture-level experimentation.

Skills

Transformer models

Diffusion architectures

Multimodal architectures

Python

PyTorch

Research-quality code

Model development

Communication

Education

Master’s or Ph.D. in CS/ML/AI or related field

Job description

The Opportunity Adobe is seeking Applied Scientists at both early-career and senior levels to develop AI innovations from research concepts through product validation and technology transfer. You will identify promising research directions; design, train, post-train, and rigorously evaluate multimodal architectures, with particular emphasis on image and video editing; and contribute to technical strategy. Depending on experience, you will contribute to or lead ambiguous, high-impact projects while remaining deeply hands-on. You will strengthen the broader research and engineering team through technical judgment, experimentation, collaboration, and, at senior levels, mentorship. This role requires hands-on model development and applied research. Experience limited to prompt engineering or model-API integration is insufficient.

What You’ll Do

• Identify research advances with the potential to create differentiated Adobe product capabilities.
• Own or contribute to applied research from problem formulation and experimentation through prototype implementation and validation.
• Curate and analyze multimodal training data, including sampling, filtering, deduplication, synthetic-data generation, and quality measurement.
• Design and optimize multimodal architectures, including vision encoders, modality projectors, and cross-modal attention.
• Build rigorous evaluation pipelines covering model quality, robustness, safety, latency, scalability, and product usefulness.
• Diagnose model failures through ablation studies, error analysis, and data- and architecture-level experimentation.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in computer science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Hands-on experience developing transformer, diffusion, or multimodal architectures through direct training or adaptation of model parameters.
• Strong Python and PyTorch skills, including experience developing, debugging, and improving research-quality model code.
• Experience with end-to-end model development, including data preparation, training, evaluation, and failure analysis.
• Experience with post-training techniques such as supervised fine-tuning, preference optimization, reinforcement learning, alignment.
• Ability to communicate technical decisions, experimental findings, and measurable impact effectively.
• Candidates will be evaluated on demonstrated technical depth and impact rather than years of experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with large-scale or distributed training, large datasets, and compute- or memory-efficient training techniques.
• Experience optimizing inference latency, throughput, memory utilization, or serving cost.
• Experience with synthetic-data generation, filtering, and quality control.
• For senior or senior-staff consideration, candidates should have years of relevant experience commensurate with the level, demonstrated through sustained technical ownership, cross-functional influence, mentorship, and measurable research or product impact.
• Model-level development experience is required; experience limited to prompt engineering, agentic application development, RAG or vector databases, and hosted LLM APIs is not sufficient for this role.

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]. At Adobe, you will be immersed in an exceptional work environment that is recognized around the world. You will also be surrounded by colleagues who are committed to helping each other grow through our unique Check-In approach where ongoing feedback flows freely. If you’re looking to make an impact, Adobe's the place for you. Discover what our employees are saying about their career experiences on the Adobe Life blog and explore the meaningful benefits we offer. There's more than meets the eye when it comes to Adobe. Take the quiz and see how well you know us! 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. Adobe aims to make Adobe.com 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 positionis $182,900 -- $352,350 annually. Paywithin this range varies by work locationand 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 $243,300 - $352,350 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 in 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.