Principal Scientist - Data Pipeline Engineer

About this role

ABOUT THE ROLE  

We’re   looking   for a Pr incipal   ML   Engineer to architect and scale the   multimodal   data   processing   pipelines and infrastructure behind Adobe Firefly’s multimodal foundation models (image, video, audio). In this role,   you’ll   sit at the intersection of data engineering and applied ML building distributed, GPU-accelerated systems that turn billions of raw assets into training-ready data at scale.  

Your wor k will directly   determine   how fast and how well   Adobe   models can learn  directly   impacted   by   the throughput and reliability of our data pipelines , and the   quality of data that reaches training. This is a senior individual contributor role with broad technical influence across data, infrastructure, and modeling teams.  

WHAT YOU’LL DO  

OPTIMIZE DATA PROCESSING PIPELINES AT SCALE  

• Architect and   optimize   large-scale   distributed pipelines that process billions of images, video, and audio assets   through ML workflows   into training-ready data  

• Scale up inference throughput across the pipeline   ( batching, parallelism, hardware   utilization )   to turn raw collected data into training data faster and more cheaply  

• Identify   and   eliminate   bottlenecks across ingestion, processing, and delivery, from storage and I/O to compute scheduling  

ARCHITECT   SCALABLE DATA INFRASTRUCTURE  

• Design systems that reliably store, index, and serve billions of data points, each requiring substantial processing   spanning large-scale databases, distributed storage, and high-throughput compute  

• Apply deep   expertise   in distributed systems and frameworks such as Ray (or equivalent) to orchestrate large-scale, GPU /CPU -heavy data workloads  

• Own architecture decisions   including  database and storage choices, job scheduling, GPU cluster   utilization  that let the platform scale alongside data and model growth  

DRIVE DATA CURATION FOR MODEL TRAINING  

• Bring a strong ML background ,  especially inference optimization for VLMs and LLMs   and   data   curation   for training  

• Partner closely with modeling teams to understand what data   improves   training outcomes, and translate that into pipeline and curation requirements  

• Operate as a hands-on technical leader who bridges data engineering and applied ML  

WHAT YOU NEED TO SUCCEED  

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, ML infrastructure, or distributed systems, including work at large scale (billions of records or assets)  

• Strong software engineering background, with hands-on   expertise   in distributed systems and frameworks such as Ray, Spark, or equivalent large-scale   data   processing frameworks  

• Proficiency   in Python, plus strong experience in a systems-level language (C++, Rust, Go, or Java) with strong debugging skills across distributed and ML-centric runtime environments.  

• Deep knowledge of databases and storage systems at scale   such as  data lakes, indexing, and retrieval across billions of data points  

• Strong ML background, particularly   exper tis e   in   optimizing   GPU inference pipelines for VLMs, LLMs, or other large models (batching, quantization, serving, throughput/latency tradeoffs)  

• Experience with data curation for model training :  understanding what makes data valuable for training generative or multimodal models, not just how to move it efficiently  

• Comfort   operating   across the full stack, from low-level systems and GPU optimization to higher-level data strategy and curation decisions  

• Ability to communicate clearly and partner effectively across data, infrastructure, and modeling teams  

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, Machine Learning, or a related field  

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

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