Adobe feels and operates like a much larger company than it actually is. I'm not sure if it has to do with a culture rooted in PDF and form handling, but Adobe moves in a very slow and bureaucratic fashion. Execs like to say it's a "conservative" culture --but on a day-to-day basis it just feels like I work for General Motors or some mega-corp.
Adobe's future is questionable. They continue to do a great job extracting revenue from their existing products, but have repeatedly failed to re-invent themselves or develop a new major revenue stream. At this rate they are destined to end up more like Xerox or Kodak than IBM or GE. Right now they are stuck operationally, and strategically as a packaged channel software company. This makes exploring new business models (SaaS, Enterprise, etc.) nearly impossible despite a rhetorical ethos of innovation.
Promotions are hard to come by at Adobe. They fancy themselves a very flat organization and it's nearly impossible to get promoted to Director or VP. This flat org approach means the opportunity for career advancement are very limited. It also means that Adobe has a strange hero-worship for their executives. Coming from Macromedia, where our execs were just normal people (though often very bright), this is pretty weird.
Adobe doesn't value intellect in hiring or promoting. They would much rather bring in a hired gun (castoff) from another tech company , with a mediocre resume, versus promoting or developing internal candidates of promise. This has played out time and time again, with employees leaving, and re-joining several years later in order to get a promotion. It also plays out daily in terms of work interactions, where I'm forced to deal with people that just aren't very bright.
Last off, Adobe's best asset (work-life balance) is also one of it's major drawbacks. For the most part, employees don't feel a sense of ownership or a strong desire to do the right thing for the customers or the business. There is a fairly pervasive "punch-the-clock" mentality. The "that's not my job" and "that decision is above my paygrade" attitudes are rampant throughout the company. It reminds me of when I worked in a factory full of teamsters. Punch in at 8, punch out at 5, do your job and nothing more, and do anything possible to avoid extra work. Further, if anybody expects anything of you, complain to the Union Steward.
