Manager, Firefly FDE

The Opportunity Join our “DevOps for Content” revolution, where we partner with global brands and agencies to transform their end-to-end creative workflows—from ideation through activation—to unlock the GenAI-powered Content Supply Chain. As a Manager, Forward Deployed AI Engineering, you will lead, mentor, and inspire a team of Forward Deployed AI Engineers (FDEs)—creative technologists who prototype, build, and launch GenAI-powered solutions and products directly with customers. Your mission is to cultivate top engineering talent, instill a culture of rapid innovation and delivery excellence, and ensure every engagement drives measurable business impact. This role requires strong, hands-on technical leadership, people mentorship, and the ability to scale GenAI adoption in enterprise environments. You’ll partner closely with the Director, Forward Deployed AI Engineering, to build a world-class product engineering org with customer-facing DNA. If you thrive on growing talent, scaling engineering excellence, and translating latest AI research into real-world solutions, this is your stage. What You’ll Do Team Leadership ·       Recruit, coach, and empower a high-performing team of Forward Deployed AI Engineers (and select Forward Deployed AI Architects). ·       Act as both mentor and peer-level engineer—reviewing code, shaping architectures, and guiding engineers on technical depth, delivery velocity, and customer impact. ·       Cultivate a culture of engineering excellence, experimentation, and AI tinkering, ensuring the team stays at the frontier of generative AI and enterprise delivery. ·       Develop future leaders by strengthening technical judgment, customer-facing confidence, and multi-functional influence. Customer Engagement & Technical Delivery ·       Sponsor and engage directly in strategic customer programs. Roll up your sleeves to build, prototype, and launch solutions and products with your engineers when customer concerns or critical achievements arise. ·       Ensure your teams apply Forward Deployed Engineering principles: embedded collaboration, rapid prototyping, iterative feedback, and production-grade handoffs. ·       Serve as the point of contact for technical and delivery challenges, balancing innovation with governance, reliability, and scale when addressing blocking issues. ·       Champion delivery excellence—every engagement must tie back to measurable value realization and customer adoption. Technical Leadership & Standards ·       Define and enforce engineering standards across pods, including CI/CD pipelines, reusable frameworks, architecture playbooks, and model governance practices. ·       Partner with Directors of Forward Deployed Engineering and Architecture to align technical approaches across the org and codify patterns into scalable, reusable assets. ·       Funnel field-proven innovations and standards into Adobe Firefly and GenStudio roadmaps—ensuring product strategy is shaped by customer reality. Thought Leadership & Cross-Team Enablement ·       Stay at the forefront of generative AI, creative automation, and enterprise integration—keeping your teams current and inspired. ·       Foster internal knowledge sharing—publishing playbooks, reusable modules, and lessons learned that accelerate the entire organization. ·       Represent your team in customer workshops, internal reviews, and external forums, showcasing the engineering craft and thought leadership of the FDE org. What You Bring ·       Technical Credibility – 8+ years of software engineering, AI/ML, or technical consulting experience, with recent hands-on development in full-stack, cloud, and GenAI applications. You can dive into code, architecture, or delivery sprints when needed. ·       People Leadership – More than 3 years