Principal Scientist, Web Graphics Acceleration

Principal Scientist, Web Graphics Acceleration

Adobe is building the future of video creation on the web. Our team is part of the Adobe Video organization, delivering high-performance video editing and playback experiences across desktop, mobile, and web platforms.

We are seeking a Principal Scientist, Web Graphics Acceleration to lead the technical direction for GPU-accelerated graphics and compute in our web video applications. This role is responsible for defining architecture, influencing platform strategy, and advancing the use of WebGPU and emerging web technologies in production-scale creative tools.

As a Principal Scientist, you will operate with broad autonomy and organizational influence. You will partner with engineering, product, design, and research leaders to shape long-term technical strategy, while remaining hands-on with critical architecture, prototyping, and technical decision-making.

What You’ll Do

• Define and drive the technical vision and architecture for GPU-accelerated rendering, compute, and video processing in Adobe’s web video platform
• Lead design and implementation of performance-critical systems using WebGPU and modern browser graphics APIs
• Evaluate, prototype, and guide adoption of emerging web standards and platform capabilities, influencing Adobe’s long-term technology roadmap
• Partner closely with Product and Design to translate creative workflows into scalable, high-quality technical solutions
• Provide technical leadership across teams, aligning engineers and stakeholders around shared architectural principles
• Mentor peer engineers and senior-level contributors, raising technical rigor and growing future technical leaders
• Lead or contribute to cross-organizational initiatives with impact beyond a single product or team
• Act as a domain expert and external representative in the broader web graphics and video ecosystem, as appropriate

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
• 12+ years of professional software development experience, including work on complex or performance-sensitive systems
• Deep expertise in web graphics or GPU-accelerated technologies, including WebGPU or comparable modern graphics/compute APIs
• Background in GPU programming concepts such as pipelines, shaders, memory models, and performance profiling
• Strong proficiency in JavaScript and TypeScript, with experience integrating low-level or high-performance components
• Demonstrated success owning architecture and technical strategy for large-scale products or platforms
• Embraces generative and AI-assisted coding and architectural patterns, and is eager to learn and adapt as development tools continue to evolve
• Proven ability to influence technical direction across teams and drive alignment without direct authority
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences
• Experience creating and maintaining clean/testable code and creating re-usable components
• Passion for learning, sharing of new ideas, and creative thinking to provide innovative solutions to challenges
• Thrives in a fast-paced, agile environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building video editing, compositing, rendering, or real-time graphics systems
• Familiarity with browser internals, platform-level performance considerations, or web standards development
• Contributions to open-source projects, publications, patents, or industry forums in relevant technical domains
• Passion for building tools that empower creators and enable new creative workflows
• Working knowledge of concepts specific to development for video and compositing tools
• Experience working in an Agile development environment

Key skills/competency

• WebGPU
• GPU Acceleration
• Video Processing
• Technical Leadership
• Graphics Architecture
• Web Standards
• Performance Optimization
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• Shader Programming