About 6 years ago, while I was working in the technical consulting business for a Swiss company called Day Software AG, I got the information that the US software company Adobe had acquired Day because of its only product, CQ5. It was a bit surprising for me, because I had not perceived Adobe as a player in the enterprise web world. I assumed Adobe sold box software for creatives, and that the only „relevant” contribution of Adobe to the web was Flash. I was also quite hesitant because I had loved Day for its openness. So I, as a consultant, had full access to source code and all the developers, and that approach was not something I would associate with an 25 year old „traditional“ American software company. But I gave it a try.
It was a good decision. I was assigned to the German consulting group, which, at the time, was small team (about 15-20 persons) of very talented people, all with no CQ5 experience at all. So 3 former Day consultants formed the core of this CQ5 consulting team, which now (in 2016) has grown to over 25 consultants doing projects with AEM (which is the evolution of CQ5), plus many others which implement projects with other products of the Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Despite my initial fear, Adobe adopted the open development culture of Day, and from my perception with huge success. The discussions between individual engineers, consultants, product managers, support, documentation teams and others take place on a permanent basis on internally open mailing lists, offering a huge pool of information to many topics, regarding AEM and beyond. So no trace of the silo-ed organization I was afraid of.
Adobe offered me a lot of chances to grow, excel, take ownership of topics and demonstrate leadership. Based on the initiative of some consultants, we were able to fund and staff the creation and delivery of an internal AEM architect course, which is highly requested (I am delivering it about twice a year). Many people are recognized as experts in specific areas because they are quite active on internal mailing lists offering help in their areas and sharing experiences from projects they did. Or in the even more informal Slack channels, where participants discuss problems, possible solutions or maybe only advise how to get the right office table for the remote (home) office. There are a lot of ways to demonstrate your skills inside (and outside!) of Adobe.
And of course the projects I worked on in the last years. Small or large, long-term or only for some days to solve a problem. A “fire-fighting” engagement to solve urgent stability issues, or review of an architecture. I did them all. For me, learning the different facets of CQ5 and AEM under many different requirements was one of the key drivers which made me stay with Adobe.
Last but not least I work in a great team. Although the consulting business and the area to cover makes it sometimes hard to meet each other, we try hard to keep in touch at least virtually. Informal in-person meetings of the regional sub-teams take place quite often, and the weekly team call (although optional) is widely used.
This year I was able to do something absolutely great: Within regular PTO, my family and I were able to do a 5-week tour through the United States, visiting some major landmarks and lots of friends. A huge „thank you“ to my managers who made this possible!
So Adobe is a great place to work. Come and join us!
Things on a content management system 