Software Development Engineer
AdobeThe Opportunity
Adobe Captivate is a leading eLearning and digital content authoring tool trusted by educators, instructional designers, and enterprises worldwide to create engaging, interactive learning experiences. As a Computer Scientist 1 on the Captivate team, you will join a fast-paced, collaborative engineering team building the next generation of our web-based authoring experience. You will work across the full stack, crafting high-quality React UIs, building and maintaining Node.js microservices, and occasionally working with our high-performance C++ backend, shipping features that directly shape how millions of learners engage with content every day.
About the Team
The Captivate engineering team operates with a startup energy inside one of the world's most recognized software companies. We move fast, own our features end-to-end, and collaborate closely with product management, design, and QA to deliver high-quality experiences on a rapid release cadence. If you are excited about crafting pixel-perfect UIs, obsessing over performance, and seeing your work shipped to a global audience, this is the team for you.
The Challenge
We are looking for a rockstar fullstack engineer who brings energy, craft, and curiosity to everything they build. As a Computer Scientist 1, you will:
- Build and ship polished, high-performance React components that power Captivate's authoring canvas and user interface.
- Design, develop, and maintain Node.js microservices that power core product functionality: from content delivery to collaboration features.
- Write clean, well-tested JavaScript/TypeScript code across the stack that your teammates love to read and review.
- Translate design mockups and product requirements into intuitive, pixel-perfect UI experiences.
- Own API contracts between frontend and backend, ensuring robust, well-documented service interfaces.
- Collaborate with senior engineers and architects to understand system design patterns and grow your own architectural thinking.
- Participate actively in code reviews: giving and receiving feedback to continuously raise the quality bar.
- Diagnose and fix bugs across the stack, balancing speed with thoroughness.
- Contribute to team discussions on technology choices, UI patterns, and service design best practices.
- Champion agentic development practices: leveraging AI-assisted coding tools, automated pipelines, and LLM-powered workflows to accelerate delivery and raise engineering quality.
- Bring a culture of innovation to the team: prototype new ideas, experiment with emerging technologies, and advocate for adopting tools and patterns that move the product forward.
Roles & Responsibilities
This is an individual contributor position. Expectations will be on the below lines:
- Develop, test, and maintain frontend features using React and TypeScript as the primary UI stack.
- Build and maintain Node.js microservices and REST APIs, taking end-to-end ownership of features from UI through service layer.
- Write unit and integration tests across both frontend and backend to ensure reliability and prevent regressions.
- Design clean API contracts and collaborate with other service teams on integration points.
- Monitor service health, triage issues in production, and implement fixes with appropriate safeguards.
- Work within established architectural patterns while surfacing ideas for improvement.
- Participate in agile ceremonies including sprint planning, standups, and retrospectives.
- Contribute to technical documentation and maintain well-commented, readable code.
- Assist in reproducing and resolving customer-reported issues across the stack.
- Occasionally work with or alongside the C++ backend team to understand integration points and constraints.
- Actively use and advocate for AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude) to boost personal and team productivity: writing better code faster while maintaining quality and ownership.
- Identify and prototype opportunities to embed agentic or LLM-powered capabilities into Captivate's product experience or internal engineering workflows.
- Stay current with emerging frontend, backend, and AI technologies; bring back relevant learnings to the team through demos, write-ups, or proof-of-concepts.
Required Skills & Expertise
4-6 years of experience in fullstack or frontend-leaning engineering roles.
Frontend Fundamentals
- Strong proficiency in React.js, including hooks, context, and component lifecycle.
- Solid command of JavaScript ES6+ and TypeScript.
- Good understanding of HTML5, CSS3, and responsive design principles.
- Familiarity with state management approaches (e.g., Redux or React Context).
- Understanding of browser rendering, the DOM, and web performance basics.
Backend & Services
- Hands-on experience building and maintaining Node.js services or microservices.
- Proficiency designing and consuming RESTful APIs; familiarity with API-first development practices.
- Comfort working with relational or NoSQL databases and understanding of basic data modeling.
- Familiarity with cloud service fundamentals (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and deploying services in a cloud environment.
Engineering Practices
- Experience writing unit and integration tests using frameworks such as Jest, React Testing Library, or Cypress.
- Familiarity with modern build tools such as Webpack.
- Comfortable working in a CI/CD environment and using version control (Git) effectively.
- Ability to read and contribute to code reviews with constructive, specific feedback.
Collaboration & Communication
- Clear verbal and written communication skills; able to articulate technical decisions to peers and cross-functional partners.
- Comfortable asking questions, sharing progress, and flagging blockers proactively.
- Willingness to learn from senior engineers and take ownership of assigned features.
Nice to Have
- Exposure to Node.js for API development or tooling.
- Familiarity with C++ or experience working with native/compiled modules from a JavaScript context.
- Experience with Electron or desktop-web hybrid application architectures.
- Experience integrating LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) or building agentic workflows into product features.
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and a track record of using them to meaningfully accelerate engineering output.
- Curiosity about the intersection of AI and creative/authoring tools: and ideas for how generative AI can enhance the Captivate product experience.
About Adobe
Adobe empowers everyone to create through innovative platforms and tools that unleash creativity, productivity and personalized customer experiences. Adobe’s industry-leading offerings including Adobe Acrobat Studio, Adobe Express, Adobe Firefly, Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Platform, Adobe Experience Manager, and GenStudio enable people and businesses to turn ideas into impact, powered by AI and driven by human ingenuity.
Our 30,000+ employees worldwide are creating the future and raising the bar as we drive the next decade of growth. We’re on a mission to hire the very best and believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. At Adobe, we believe that great ideas can come from anywhere in the organization. The next big idea could be yours.
Let’s Adobe together
At Adobe, we believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. Learn more about Adobe life, including our values and culture, focus on people, purpose and community, Adobe for All, comprehensive benefits programs, the stories we tell, the customers we serve, and how you can help us advance our mission of empowering everyone to create.
Adobe is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. Learn more.
Adobe aims to make our Careers website and recruiting process accessible to any and all users. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation to navigate our website or complete the application process, email accommodations@adobe.com or call +1 408-536-3015.
AI Use Guidelines for Interviews:
Our interviews are designed to reflect your own skills and thinking. The use of AI or recording tools during live interviews is not permitted unless explicitly invited by the interviewer or approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation. If these tools are used inappropriately or in a way that misrepresents your work, your application may not move forward in the process.
At Adobe, we empower employees to innovate with AI — and we look for candidates eager to do the same. As part of the hiring experience, we provide clear guidance on where AI is encouraged during the process and where it’s restricted during live interviews. See how we think about AI in the hiring experience.