Senior Manager - Applied ML Research

Senior Engineering Manager , Applied Research - Express AI Foundations The Opportunity Adobe Express enables everyone — individuals and large organizations alike — to produce impressive content effortlessly. The AI Foundations team builds the flexible, scalable AI framework that powers creativity at scale across design, imaging, motion, and personalization. The AI Foundations group sits at the core of this vision, driving innovation to make Adobe Express smarter, faster, and more adaptive! We are looking for a Senior Manager to lead and grow the Machine Learning team in India, bringing the latest and greatest from the existing literature into our AI stack spanning Agentic AI, Imaging AI, Motion AI, and Personalization AI, while developing the team members who help us deliver these artifacts. What You'll Do Technical direction and delivery Drive ML projects involving building innovative machine learning models that drive Agentic and other Generative AI scenarios for Adobe Express. Own the ML lifecycle—from ideation and prototyping to evaluation and deployment. Contribute to foundational AI systems for orchestration , layout automation, image generation, and motion storytelling. Define and implement evaluation strategies using a combination of automated metrics, LLM based judges, and user feedback. Be a technical leader withing the wider Express AI Foundations leadership, helping to make the right technical investments. Cross-functional partnership Collaborate with other cross-geo ML teams within Express to drive innovation and alignment . Align with Engineering and PM partners to ensure product focus . Drive collaboration with Adobe Research to translate ideas into production-ready capabilities. Team leadership and people development Lead and mentor a team of 5 - 6 ML engineers , providing technical direction and encouraging a strong culture of innovation and experimentation. Drive a strong hiring bar — own the full recruiting lifecycle for your team, from sourcing through offer, and help build an inclusive, high-performing culture . Foster a collaborative, psychologically safe environment where engineers can do their best work and grow into senior and staff roles . Basic Qualifications 3–5 years of ML Engineering / Applied Science management experience, with a track record of delivering complex infrastructure or platform projects through a team. Experience owning team execution end-to-end — including structured prioritization across competing workstreams, dependency management, and shipping reliably in an agile, fast paced environment. Can articulate trade-off decisions clearly, not just make them. Clear, structured communication skills — able to translate technical trade-offs into business terms for PMs and non-technical partners , and to influence direction without authority across teams. Comfort navigating ambiguity: defining scope, making decisions with incomplete information, and adapting plans quickly as systems and priorities evolve. Experience shipping models in production at scale. Strong understanding of current ML literature in multi-modal reasoning space — sufficient to guide technical decisions, set a quality bar, and grow team capability. Demonstrated ability to grow engineers: mentoring , setting expectations, giving actionable feedback, and supporting career progression at multiple levels. Preferred Qualifications Masters, or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field with equivalent experience. Experience with 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 Passionate about leading and growing team members ! 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. Collaborative spirit with a focus on product impact, AI / ML innovation and engineering excellence. 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 . 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 .