Top down management that worked based on fear with no vision and bad technology - Lead Product Manager Adobe Employee Review

2.0
Apr 11, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Food is good - Gym is good -Life balance can be good and flexible especially for managers. I have seen people take 2 months off a year

Cons

- 10% of the people do 90% of the work - A lot of people have been there over 20 years and are stuck in their ways. They have no idea what is happening outside of Adobe and are building things with no vision. - Teams are built without being staffed properly. Too many stakeholders get involved which make every extremely slow - People are extremely fake. They are going to be nice to you and then talk behind your back. Alliances are everything. - Management work based on fear. Unless you follow your manager blindly you can't get anywhere. They want change but they don't really want it. - Creativity and ideas are not welcomed unless it is aligned with what leadership wants. - Lots of people are there for a paycheck. Lack of talent - Extremely slow paced environment - The tech stack is surprisingly bad. It is not a tech company, it is a marketing one. - Product managers don't have sprint teams, they are consultants for the most part. - Most PMs don't use their own products and build without a vision or innovation -Growth is impossible as they are already so many managers and people get promoted on time spent on the Company vs impact.

Explore other reviews about Adobe

5.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

all good things considered to work here

Cons

often times, it can feel pretty boring

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Awesome culture. I love going to work every day. People are really nice - exciting to be in the industry where a lot of innovation is happening - good work life balance - flexible RTO - two one-week shutdowns per year, unlimited PTO, global wellness days, great benefits

Cons

- Leadership lost its way. Missed huge opportunities in markets served by Canva and GenAI. Took the wrong bet on commercially safe models, missing out on huge opportunities that were captured by competing GenAI models. No clear strategy or vision from management about how to get back in track. Our products are losing market share every day and management seems to be lime deer in headlights, unsure what to do - Watching stock price deflating nearly every day is disheartening - Decision making is very slow. Takes ages to get things approved. - C-suite is mostly over 50 and often seem out of touch with latest AI and tech trends. Uphill battle sometimes to get them to see urgent opportunities that need to be acted on immediately - Adobe failed to organically develop major products in the last 20 years. Major recent ones; Firefly and Express; have not been successful.

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