Senior Software Development Engineer

Senior Software Development Engineer – Backend Adobe Experience Platform – Journey Optimizer Our Company Changing the world through digital experiences is what Adobe’s all about. We give everyone—from emerging artists to global brands—everything they need to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences. We’re passionate about empowering people to create beautiful and powerful experiences and transforming how companies interact with customers across every screen. We’re on a mission to hire the very best and are committed to creating exceptional employee experiences where everyone is respected and has access to equal opportunity. We realize new ideas can come from everywhere—and the next big idea could be yours. The Opportunity Adobe Journey Optimizer (AJO), part of Adobe Experience Platform, enables enterprises to deliver real-time, personalized customer journeys at global scale. The platform operates on event-driven architectures and low-latency data systems , requiring robust, scalable backend infrastructure. We are looking for a Senior Software Development Engineer to lead the design and evolution of core backend systems powering journey orchestration and decisioning. This role involves owning end-to-end system architecture , driving innovation in distributed systems and real-time data processing , and influencing technical direction across teams. You will work on complex, high-impact problems spanning stream processing, data storage, and intelligent system design , contributing to the long-term evolution of Adobe Experience Platform. In addition, you will play a key role in integrating AI-driven capabilities into AJO , including enabling intelligent decisioning, personalization, and next-generation user experiences powered by machine learning and generative AI. What You’ll Do Lead the design and development of large-scale, distributed backend systems supporting real-time journey orchestration Own and drive end-to-end architecture for critical services, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability Define and evolve event-driven systems using Apache Kafka for high-throughput, low-latency processing Architect and optimize data storage and access patterns using technologies such as MongoDB and Aerospike Design systems with a long-term architectural perspective , balancing immediate needs with future scalability Drive cross-team technical initiatives , aligning design and implementation across multiple services and components Identify and resolve complex system-level challenges , including performance bottlenecks and reliability issues Lead design and code reviews , establishing best practices, and improving overall engineering quality Mentor engineers and contribute to the technical growth of the team Collaborate with product and platform teams to translate requirements into robust technical solutions What You Need to Succeed BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, or a related field 6–10 years of experience building and operating distributed systems in production environments Strong expertise in Java backend development and system design Proven experience designing and scaling: Event-driven systems (Apache Kafka or equivalent) NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB) Low-latency key-value stores (e.g., Aerospike, Redis) Strong understanding of distributed systems concepts , including concurrency, fault tolerance, and consistency models Experience owning system design and architecture for complex, multi-component systems Ability to work independently on ambiguous problems and drive solutions to completion Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams Nice to Have Experience with stream processing frameworks (e.g., Flink, Spark) Familiarity with AI/ML systems or data-driven decisioning platforms Experience working on large-scale SaaS or customer engagement platforms Experience with observability and performance tooling (e.g., Grafana, Splu ... (truncated, view full listing at source)