One of the best out there, but a few things to improve - Anonymous employee Adobe Employee Review

4.0
May 31, 2009
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Adobe is home to a ton of extremely smart and hard-working people, many of whom (not surprisingly) are also artistic or musically inclined. It's a real pleasure to work with such a diverse and interesting bunch of colleagues. Work-life balance is taken very seriously at Adobe, so despite the intense workload people have the resources and support to avoid burnout. It's fun to work for a company with the level of name recognition that Adobe has, although everyone you know will expect you to teach them how to use Photoshop (even if you work in a completely different BU). Job security. Unless you're a complete screwup or in a bad skills-job match, the odds that you will be laid off from Adobe are low. The number of people with 5, 7, or even 10 years of time in at Adobe is high.

Cons

The flip side of job security is that turnover at Adobe is quite low and promotions are very hard to come by. The "bench strength" at Adobe is very deep. If you want to move up the ladder, cultivate patience. However, if you're OK with staying at your current level you will have the opportunity to work on different projects and learn new skills. One of the more intangible issues at Adobe is the Adobe - Macromedia cultural divide. Even 4 years post-merger, the lines between old and new Adobe are clear to see. Depending on which BU you're working in, Adobe can be either a slow moving, hard to change beast or a fast moving, exciting, more entrepreneurial organization. On an interpersonal level everyone gets along OK, but the differences in how stuff gets done causes issues when trying to work cross-BU. The difference between the SF and SJ offices is emblematic of this cultural issue. The SJ office, although very nice, is staid and corporate. The SF office is much more open and comfortable.

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Pros

all good things considered to work here

Cons

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4.0
Jun 16, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

* Refreshing focus on employee wellness * Brilliant colleagues * Compelling problems on interesting tools * Good work/life balance culture... generally (see cons) I've been at a few big tech companies and Adobe is one of my favorites. I feel empowered to make impactful changes here, I'm constantly stretching myself in fun ways, and the products we make are incredible. Product and engineering have big dreams, and all the resources we need to realize them.

Cons

* Big time crunch culture around arbitrary goals By far my biggest disappointment has been just how hard product pushes on big projects with arbitrary deadlines and difficult scope. It turns into cutting corners and delivering sub-par experiences even though we absolutely have the talent and capability to make some exceptional things if we just let the dang thing bake a few more months. I'd be more impressed with the tight clip if the goals were reasonable for good business reasons, but as far as I can tell the reason usually boils down to "some high-level manager wanted X and thought Y sounded like a good target date". * Comp growth leaves something to be desired. Raises feel pretty flat, though it's not the worst thing since stock rewards can be pretty good as appropriate for performance. Career progression is pretty good here too - I just find it odd how stale the base pay increases are year to year.

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