Director of Research & Strategy, Adobe Express

Adobe Adobe · Enterprise · San Francisco, Washington, OR +4 · Remote

Director of Research & Strategy for Adobe Express, leading a team to shape experiences across web, mobile, and desktop applications using AI/ML technologies to enable creativity and productivity. The role involves partnering with Design, Product, and Engineering executives to provide strategic direction, feedback, and resolve ambiguous problems. Responsibilities include building and leading a high-performing team, fostering collaboration, defining and executing research strategy, contributing to product strategy, and influencing cross-functional leaders. Requires 10+ years of experience managing researchers and leaders, executive collaboration, strong communication skills, and experience leveraging AI solutions within research programs.

What you'd actually do

  1. Build and lead a high-performing research and strategy team; coaching senior talent, attracting top-tier leaders, and fostering a culture of rigor, growth, and impact.
  2. Build a collaborative environment and encourage deep partnership with cross-functional teams, setting a high bar for research craft and embedding research into strategic planning and execution.
  3. Define and execute research strategy for redesigns, new audiences and product directions, and lead all aspects of research execution across releases on multiple platforms.
  4. Contribute to product strategy discussions through deep customer research and design partnerships to bring visions to life.
  5. Influence cross-functional leaders to act on insights, driving measurable improvements in user and business outcomes.

Skills

Required

  • Managing researchers, strategists, and research leaders
  • Executive collaboration
  • Strategic problem framing and solving
  • Customer-centric and holistic design
  • Communication skills

Nice to have

  • Fostering an inclusive and empowering environment
  • Facilitation across product-design-research-engineering teams
  • Learner and mentor mentality

What the JD emphasized

  • 10+ years of equivalent practical experience of managing researchers, strategists, and research leaders.
  • Have leveraged AI solutions as part of an overall research program