Software Quality Engineer 5

About the Role

We're looking for a Senior Quality Lead to own quality strategy and execution for our Windows desktop application.

You will solve the hardest quality problems in native desktop software: performance under load, memory and CPU

pressure, and inter-process communication. You'll be the person who connects test rigor to what actually matters for

users and the business.

What You'll Do

Team Leadership

– Lead, mentor, and grow a team of QEs — set testing standards, review test plans, and build a culture of ownership and technical depth across the team

– Own testing for complex areas leading to healthy feature releases

– Drive test strategy across manual and automated coverage, balancing near-term release needs with long-term quality investment

– Partner with engineering leads and managers to embed quality thinking early in the development cycle, not just at the release gate

Windows Desktop Quality Ownership

– Own testing strategy for a native Windows desktop application, with deep hands-on expertise in Windows-specific testing challenges — process architecture, multi-window behavior, OS-level integrations, and installer/update flows

– Design and execute test strategies for performance and memory — profiling under sustained use, catching leaks and regressions before they reach production

– Proactively design and build test scenarios that simulate memory and CPU-constrained conditions — low- resource devices, competing background processes, sustained high-load sessions — to validate the app degrades gracefully rather than crashing, hanging, or corrupting state under pressure

– Own testing for inter-process communication (IPC) — validating correctness, timing, and failure modes across multi-process architectures (e.g., sandboxed/broker processes), including process lifecycle, crash recovery, and message-passing reliability under resource pressure

– Partner with engineering to identify and validate optimization opportunities that improve the app's behavior under memory/CPU pressure — this role is expected to surface real product-quality risks, not just document them

Product & Customer Impact

– Bring genuine customer empathy to testing — think in terms of real user workflows and real-world device conditions, not just test-case pass/fail

– Build a strong understanding of the product roadmap and business priorities so testing effort is weighted toward what actually moves the needle for users and the business

– Actively engage with product initiatives from the discovery phase onward — shape acceptance criteria, flag risk early, and represent the quality voice in product conversations, not just at the tail end of a release

What We're Looking For

– 10+ years in software quality engineering, with significant experience testing native Windows desktop applications

– Proven experience leading a team of testers — mentoring, setting technical direction, and being accountable for team output

– Deep hands-on experience testing for performance, memory management, and stability in desktop environments, including proactively designing scenarios that simulate resource-constrained conditions (low memory, CPU contention, sustained load) to catch degradation before it reaches users

– Practical experience testing inter-process communication and multi-process application architectures

– A track record of partnering with engineering on optimization — not just reporting resource issues, but helping shape the fix

– Strong customer empathy — an ability to think and advocate from the user's perspective, including real-world device constraints

– Demonstrated ability to understand product context and business priorities, and to translate that into a testing strategy that matters

– Excellent communication skills — able to represent quality perspective clearly to engineering, product, and leadership

Nice to Have

– Experience with test automation frameworks for desktop applications

– Familiarity with crash reporting, telemetry, and stability metrics (e.g., CFU tracking)

– Experience in imaging, photo/video editing, or creative software domains

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.

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.