Lead Applied Researcher, AI Foundations – Adobe Express

Lead Applied Researcher, AI Foundations – Adobe Express

Join to apply for the Lead Applied Researcher, AI Foundations – Adobe Express role at Adobe

Lead Applied Researcher, AI Foundations – Adobe Express

5 days ago Be among the first 25 applicants

Join to apply for the Lead Applied Researcher, AI Foundations – Adobe Express role at Adobe

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.

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 empowers users to seamlessly construct striking designs, whether they are novices or experienced engineers, on a user-friendly platform improved by groundbreaking AI capabilities. The AI Foundations team sits at the core of this vision, driving innovation to make Adobe Express smarter, faster, and more adaptive! By developing modular, reusable AI systems and crafting a robust Horizon AI Stack, this team will play a pivotal role in transforming creative workflows. Joining this team means crafting the future of creativity, solving complex engineering challenges, and delivering scalable AI solutions that redefine what is possible in design!
What You'll Do

• Build innovative machine learning models that drive Agentic and other Generative AI scenarios for Adobe Express.
• Lead and mentor a small team of applied researchers, providing technical direction and encouraging a strong culture of innovation and experimentation.
• Contribute to foundational AI systems for intelligent assistance, layout automation, image generation, and motion storytelling.
• Design and build 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.
• Drive collaboration with Adobe Research, product, and platform teams to translate ideas into production-ready capabilities.
• Define and implement evaluation strategies using a combination of automated metrics, LLM based judges, and user feedback.
  

Basic Qualifications

• Masters, or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field with equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of industry experience in machine learning and product development related to AI.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or technically guiding other researchers or engineers.
• Strong programming skills and proficiency in ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX.
• Experience with modern ML architectures including transformers / visual transformers, diffusion models, or GANs.
• Experience with cloud platforms, MLOps and deploying ML systems in production at scale.
• Be able to quickly read, understand and prototype relevant research papers.
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Large Language Models and model adaptation techniques (Ex: PEFT, SFT, RL etc.)
• Familiarity with agent-based systems, intelligent assistants, or planner-based AI.
• Experience in creative, imaging, or multimedia domains.
• Publications in renowned ML/CV/AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, CVPR, ICML, SIGGRAPH).
  

What You Need To Succeed

• Be a leader with a point of view and a passion for creativity, striving to improve solutions.
• Be up to date with the latest and greatest in AI Research.
• Comfortable working in a fast, iterative and ambiguous environment.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical ideas and experiment results clearly.
• Collaborative spirit with a focus on product impact, AI / ML innovation and engineering excellence.
  

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 $162,000 -- $301,200 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.
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.
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 or call (408) 536-3015.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Research, Analyst, and Information Technology

• Industries

  Advertising Services, IT Services and IT Consulting, and Software Development

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Adobe by 2x

Sign in to set job alerts for “Lead Researcher” roles.

Sunnyvale, CA $100,000.00-$200,000.00 2 weeks ago

San Jose, CA $185,900.00-$222,900.00 1 week ago

Mountain View, CA $117,000.00-$160,850.00 2 weeks ago

San Jose, CA $185,900.00-$222,900.00 2 weeks ago

Senior Research Associate, Purification/Analytical Chemistry

San Mateo County, CA $50.00-$60.00 3 weeks ago

Senior Mixed Methods Researcher, Managed Enterprise Growth

Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer/CTO/Quantum AI Researcher (PhD)

Quarterly Lecturer - Public Health in Qualitative Research Methods

Mountain View, CA $94,800.00-$176,100.00 3 days ago

Senior Quantitative UX Researcher, Google Ads Platform

Mountain View, CA $151,000.00-$222,000.00 6 days ago

Senior Mixed Methods Researcher – Managed Enterprise Growth

Santa Clara, CA $160,160.00-$266,930.00 4 days ago

San Jose, CA $197,600.00-$296,400.00 1 month ago

Menlo Park, CA $70,000.00-$90,000.00 2 weeks ago

Quantum Algorithms Researcher (Chemistry/Materials Science)

Mountain View, CA $125,000.00-$165,000.00 1 week ago

Sr. UX Researcher, Selling Partner Services

Sunnyvale, CA $137,000.00-$226,500.00 1 week ago

Research Associate (ARD FEL - Attosecond Science)

Menlo Park, CA $70,000.00-$100,000.00 2 weeks ago

Senior Director, Medical Affairs Research LIVE

San Jose, CA $96,000.00-$176,000.00 1 week ago

Faculty - Non-Tenure Track (Scholar Educator)

Associate Post Masters Mental Health Fellow, Adult Team

Research Associate - LCLS SRD Laser and Chemical Sciences

Menlo Park, CA $70,000.00-$100,000.00 2 weeks ago

Fellow, High Capacity Storage Solutions Architecture

San Jose, CA $244,500.00-$462,500.00 5 days ago

Senior Advanced Support Specialist - HOH Fellows/DoD SkillBridge Candidates

Senior Advanced Support Specialist - HOH Fellows/DoD SkillBridge Candidates

We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.

#J-18808-Ljbffr