Staff Design Engineer, Document Foundations

The opportunity

Are you passionate about web UI design and development, solving design problems at scale, and crafting simple and elegant solutions for complex problems? Adobe Design is seeking a Design Engineer to join Document Cloud Foundations and work on the design system. 

Your work will ultimately benefit millions of Adobe customers — helping Adobe’s designers and engineering teams deliver great products and services.

As a senior team member, you’ll participate in key technical planning activities, such as feature discovery, system architecture, requirements definition, project scope, and delivery expectations. Team members participate in key planning activities, such as feature discovery, system architecture, requirements definition, project scope, and delivery. 

What you’ll do

• Lead 0→1 and iterative development of the Document Cloud design system, including architecture, components, and scalable patterns 

• Drive technical direction and decision-making across system architecture, APIs, and implementation strategies 

• Partner with design, engineering, and platform teams (including Adobe Spectrum) to ensure alignment, consistency, and adoption across products 

• Define and promote best practices for building, testing, and consuming design system components 

• Author high-quality documentation to support internal consumers

• Identify and apply AI/LLM technologies to improve developer and designer workflows, system scalability, and user experience

• Mentor engineers and designers, raising the bar for quality, accessibility, and maintainability across the system 

• Influence adoption and usage of the design system across multiple teams and products

What you need to succeed

Must-Haves:

• 8-10+ years of relevant experience in industry

• Experience leading technical projects or influencing architecture across multiple teams

• Have shipped and validated production quality applications in React and Typescript

• Expert knowledge in JavaScript and CSS fundamentals and have composed applications you are proud of in modern frameworks and libraries

• Experience with git and GitHub, the process of contributing to open source development, and performing peer code reviews.

• Experience with CSS architecture and best practices, such as pre- and post-processors, cross-browser concerns, layout, CSS custom properties, responsive design, and animation.

• Familiarity with design systems concepts such as tokens, tooling, standard methodologies, and how they integrate with product development

• Experience building libraries, frameworks, or SDKs used by other developers

• Understanding of accessibility practices (WCAG), web standards, and testing methods including unit testing and visual regression testing.

• Experience leveraging AI-assisted development tools in real-world workflows.

• A pragmatic, collaborative and open-minded outlook, and a high degree of comfort working in a fast-paced environment closely working with designers and engineers.

Nice-to-Haves:

• Experience building LLM powered applications, and familiarity with the generative AI landscape.

• Experience building responsive components for mobile web

• Practice with open development, providing collaborative and detailed feedback to other team members

• Hands-on usage of build, test, and release methods; such as compilers, linting, CI/CD tooling, software testing and validation techniques, and modern dev-ops practices

About Adobe Design

Adobe Design is the multidisciplinary, global organization behind Adobe experiences. Our full-stack team includes design researchers, design engineers, experience designers, brand designers, content strategists, and program managers dedicated to delivering exceptional experiences for Adobe users.

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 accommodations@adobe.com or call +1 408-536-3015. 

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 position is $159,200 -- $301,600 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 $208,300 - $301,600


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.