Sr Design Engineer

The opportunity

The Design Technology Team empowers Adobe’s Design organization through tools, services, and other resources. Our mission is to find points of friction within the design process and optimize them, use technology like AI and automation to simplify workflows, and build foundational services for designers and builders at Adobe.

Our team delivers solutions across the product lifecycle, from AI-assisted prototyping to deployment and hosting infrastructure.

We're looking for a Senior Engineer to build and scale these platforms. You'll work full-stack, building everything from React and Web Components on the frontend to Node.js services and AI/LLM integrations on the backend. This is a role for someone who understands that great engineering for designers requires deep empathy for how designers work, someone who thinks about developer experience and design system architecture with equal care.

You'll collaborate closely with the team to ship production-quality tools used by designers across Adobe. You'll integrate modern AI capabilities into design workflows, build applications that feel intuitive to use, and solve the unique technical challenges of building tools for creative professionals.

If you love building developer/designer tools, care deeply about craft and user experience, and want to shape the future of how designers work at Adobe, we'd love to meet you.

What you’ll do

Build Full-Stack Features for Internal Tools & Services

• Develop frontend components using React and Lit (Web Components) that feel polished, performant, and intuitive for designers to use
• Build backend services in Node.js to support design workflows, AI integrations, asset management, and collaboration features
• Architect and implement AI/LLM integrations (OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face) that augment design capabilities in meaningful ways
• Write clean, maintainable, well-tested code that other engineers can build on
• Support users with questions and problems they face using our tools

Own Technical Architecture & Design System Development

• Design and implement scalable component architectures for internal platforms, balancing flexibility, performance, and ease of use
• Build developer tooling, build systems, and documentation that make tools & workflows easy to adopt and extend
• Collaborate with the team to translate design vision into technical implementation, ensuring high-fidelity execution while identifying technical constraints early
• Establish patterns and standards for component development, testing, and versioning

Integrate AI & LLM Capabilities

• Build integrations with AI/LLM APIs to power intelligent features in our tools
• Design prompt engineering strategies, RAG pipelines, and agent workflows that deliver reliable, useful results
• Optimize AI features for performance, cost, and user experience
• Know the latest on AI/LLM developments and bring relevant capabilities into the team's products

Collaborate multi-functionally

• Partner with designers to understand workflows and struggles, translating user needs into technical solutions
• Work with engineering partners across Adobe to create and integrate tools & workflows into existing products and pipelines
• Contribute to technical discussions, code reviews, and architectural decisions
• Share knowledge with the team and help elevate engineering practices

What you need to succeed

Must-Haves:

• 5–8 years of software engineering experience building web applications and developer tools
• Strong frontend development skills with React and modern JavaScript/TypeScript
• Experience with Web Components (Lit or similar) or willingness to learn quickly
• Solid backend development experience with Node.js and REST APIs
• Hands-on experience building with AI/LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, or similar)
• Understanding of design systems and component library architecture—you've built or contributed to one before
• Experience with build tools, package management (npm), and modern development workflows
• Strong grasp of Git workflows and collaborative development practices
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate with designers, product managers, and other engineers
• Design sensibility, you understand what makes a good user experience and care about the details

Nice-to-Haves:

• Experience with TypeScript in production codebases
• Familiarity with design tools like Figma and understanding of design-to-code workflows
• Experience with prompt engineering, RAG architectures, or AI agent frameworks
• Background in developer experience (DX) or building tools for other engineers/designers
• Familiarity with Adobe's creative tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefly, Express)
• Experience with Vite, Rollup, or other modern build tooling
• Understanding of accessibility standards (WCAG) and inclusive design practices

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 $139,000 -- $257,550 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.

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.