The OpportunityAdobe Stock provides millions of customers with access to high-quality creative content coordinated across Adobe's products and workflows. As content creation, discovery, licensing, and consumption evolve through generative and agentic AI, our architecture must enable new customer experiences while maintaining performance, reliability, security, governance, and trust.
We are seeking a Principal Architect to serve as the architectural authority for Adobe Stock. This role owns end-to-end architecture, guides the development of critical features and services, and translates strategic objectives into coherent, scalable, and achievable technical plans.
Success demands outstanding technical judgment, skill in resolving complex disagreements across teams, and a demonstrated record of converting business objectives into production-grade systems and adopted architectural standards.
What you'll Do- Set long-term architectural and technology direction in alignment with Adobe's product, technical, and business strategy.
- Assess the architectural feasibility of strategic objectives, identifying dependencies, risks, tradeoffs, investment needs, and viable paths to execution.
- Lead the architecture of large-scale systems supporting content search, discovery, delivery, licensing, generative AI, agentic workflows, and customer experiences.
- Shape the integration of AI-native and agentic capabilities into production workflows.
- Establish architectural patterns and standards for APIs, microservices, frontend architecture, event-driven systems, data platforms, and cross-product integrations.
- Identify systemic technical risks and architectural gaps, then work with leaders to establish practical mitigation plans.
- Communicate Stock's architectural direction, decisions, risks, and investment needs to senior executives and other key participants.
- Mentor architects and technical leads, strengthening systems thinking, technical judgment, and communication.
What you need to succeed- 20 or more years of experience in software engineering and platform architecture.
- Expertise in distributed systems, networked and event-driven architectures, APIs, frontend architecture, data platforms, cloud-native technologies, and systems integration.
- Experience designing systems for demanding performance, scalability, reliability, security, privacy, observability, and operational-efficiency requirements.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex decisions and tradeoffs to technical and nontechnical audiences.
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, engineering, or a related technical field.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience architecting content platforms, digital-asset systems, marketplaces, search and discovery systems, or large-scale media-processing workflows.
- Experience in developing Agentic AI systems and solutions
- Experience working in highly matrixed, enterprise-scale environments
- Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in Computer Science or related field
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.
