Manager, Forward Deployed AI Engineering

Adobe Systems Incorporated•San Jose, CA

40d

About The Position

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! Join our "DevOps for Content" revolution, where we partner with global brands and agencies to transform their end-to-end creative workflows-from ideation through activation-to unlock the GenAI-powered Content Supply Chain. As a Manager, Forward Deployed AI Engineering, you will lead, mentor, and inspire a team of Forward Deployed AI Engineers (FDEs)-creative technologists who prototype, build, and launch GenAI-powered solutions and products directly with customers. Your mission is to cultivate top engineering talent, instill a culture of rapid innovation and delivery excellence, and ensure every engagement drives measurable business impact. This role requires strong, hands-on technical leadership, people mentorship, and the ability to scale GenAI adoption in enterprise environments. You'll partner closely with the Director, Forward Deployed AI Engineering, to build a world-class product engineering org with customer-facing DNA. If you thrive on growing talent, scaling engineering excellence, and translating cutting-edge AI research into real-world solutions, this is your stage.

Requirements

Technical Credibility - 5+ years of software engineering, AI/ML, or technical consulting experience, with recent hands-on development in full-stack, cloud, and GenAI applications. You can dive into code, architecture, or delivery sprints when needed.
People Leadership - 3+ years in people management or technical team leadership, with a proven ability to mentor, coach, and grow engineers and architects into top-tier technical and customer-facing talent.
GenAI Mastery - Direct experience with modern AI technologies, including LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Llama, Mistral), diffusion models (Firefly, Stable Diffusion, DALL·E), RAG pipelines, vector databases, and agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen).
Adobe Platform Fluency - Strong working knowledge of Adobe Firefly APIs, Creative Cloud SDKs, GenStudio for Performance Marketing, and enterprise integration patterns.
DevOps & Delivery Excellence - Expertise in cloud deployments (AWS, Azure), CI/CD, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and enterprise-grade delivery with governance, security, and monitoring.
Customer-Facing Leadership - Track record of engaging directly with enterprise customers, simplifying technical complexity, and earning trust as both an engineer and a strategic partner.
Culture Builder - Ability to cultivate a high-performance, customer-obsessed culture grounded in engineering excellence, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing.
Startup DNA - Thrives in fast-paced, ambiguous environments; relentless about finding faster, better, more innovative ways to deliver impact for customers and scale patterns across the org.
Flexibility & Presence - Adaptable and energized by balancing hands-on engineering with people leadership. Willingness to travel up to 30% to support customers and teams in person.

Responsibilities

Recruit, coach, and empower a high-performing team of Forward Deployed AI Engineers (and select Forward Deployed AI Architects).
Act as both mentor and peer-level engineer-reviewing code, shaping architectures, and guiding engineers on technical depth, delivery velocity, and customer impact.
Cultivate a culture of engineering excellence, experimentation, and AI tinkering, ensuring the team stays at the frontier of generative AI and enterprise delivery.
Develop future leaders by strengthening technical judgment, customer-facing confidence, and cross-functional influence.
Sponsor and engage directly in strategic customer programs-rolling up your sleeves to design, prototype, and launch solutions and products alongside your engineers when escalations or critical milestones arise.
Ensure your teams apply Forward Deployed Engineering principles: embedded collaboration, rapid prototyping, iterative feedback, and production-grade handoffs.
Serve as the escalation point for technical and delivery challenges, balancing innovation with governance, reliability, and scale.
Champion delivery excellence-every engagement must tie back to measurable value realization and customer adoption.
Define and enforce engineering standards across pods, including CI/CD pipelines, reusable frameworks, architecture playbooks, and model governance practices.
Partner with Directors of Forward Deployed Engineering and Architecture to align technical approaches across the org and codify patterns into scalable, reusable assets.
Funnel field-proven innovations and best practices into Adobe Firefly and GenStudio roadmaps-ensuring product strategy is shaped by customer reality.
Stay at the forefront of generative AI, creative automation, and enterprise integration-keeping your teams current and inspired.
Foster internal knowledge sharing-publishing playbooks, reusable modules, and lessons learned that accelerate the entire organization.
Represent your team in customer workshops, internal reviews, and external forums, showcasing the engineering craft and thought leadership of the FDE org.