Sr. AEM Architect

Job Description

Job Description

Role Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced and strategic Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Architect to lead the design, implementation, and governance of enterprise-scale digital experience platforms. This role demands deep technical mastery of AEM Sites, Assets, Forms, and Cloud Service — paired with architectural vision to build scalable, performant, and maintainable solutions aligned with business goals.

The ideal candidate will serve as the technical authority on AEM across development team, bridging business requirements with platform capabilities while mentoring team and driving best practices.

AEM Sites AEM Assets AEM Forms AEM Cloud Service OSGi / Felix Sling Framework JCR / Oak HTL / Sightly Adobe IMS Dispatcher CI/CD Pipelines CDN / Fastly

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & System Design

• Design end-to-end AEM architectures for multi-site, multi-tenant, and multi-lingual enterprise deployments including author/publish topology, dispatcher configuration, and CDN integration.
• Define content architecture, JCR repository structure, taxonomy, tagging strategies, and metadata schemas to support scalable content management.
• Architect reusable component libraries (Core Components, custom), page templates, editable templates, and Style Systems aligned with design systems.
• Lead AEM Cloud Service migration strategy including assessment, content migration planning, custom code refactoring, and go-live execution.
• Design integrations with Adobe Experience Cloud (Analytics, Target, Campaign, Launch/Tags) and third-party platforms via APIs, event-driven architectures, and webhooks.

Implementation & Development Oversight

• Own and govern the AEM codebase including OSGi bundles, Sling Models, Servlets, Workflows, Schedulers, and custom AEM applications.
• Establish and enforce development standards: coding conventions, PR review processes, unit testing (AEM Mocks / Mockito), integration testing, and documentation.
• Design and implement AEM as a Cloud Service pipelines (Frontend, Full Stack, Config) via Adobe Cloud Manager with quality gates.
• Build and maintain Dispatcher configurations for caching, URL rewriting, security headers, and load balancing across environments.
• Implement DAM workflows, asset rendition pipelines, Smart Tags integration, and metadata management strategies in AEM Assets.

Performance, Security & Governance

• Conduct performance profiling using tools such as AEM Request Log Analyzer, YSlow, and APM platforms; optimize component rendering, query performance (Oak index tuning), and cache strategies.
• Enforce security best practices including service user configuration, ACL design, CSRF protection, Sling Security configurations, and Adobe IMS integration.
• Define and manage replication topologies, content distribution (Sling Content Distribution), and live copy / MSM strategies for global rollouts.
• Monitor AEM Cloud Service environments via Adobe Cloud Manager logs, New Relic, and Splunk; establish alerting and on-call runbooks.

Stakeholder Collaboration & Leadership

• Partner with Product Owners, UX designers, and business stakeholders to translate functional requirements into scalable AEM solutions.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to a team of AEM developers; conduct architecture reviews, design sessions, and knowledge-sharing workshops.
• Create and maintain architecture decision records (ADRs), technical design documents, runbooks, and onboarding guides.
• Evaluate and recommend third-party integrations, AEM add-ons, and emerging Adobe technologies in alignment with roadmap and budget.

Required Qualifications

Experience

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with a minimum of 3 years focused on Adobe Experience Manager (formerly CQ5/CRX).
• Proven track record of architecting and delivering at least 3 large-scale AEM implementations from discovery through production.
• Hands-on experience with AEM as a Cloud Service (AEMaaCS) including Cloud Manager pipelines, environment management, and migration tooling.

Technical Proficiencies

AEM Platform

• AEM Sites, Assets, Forms, Screens, Commerce
• OSGi framework (Apache Felix), SCR annotations
• Apache Sling – Resources, Resolvers, Servlets
• JCR (Apache Jackrabbit Oak) – Nodes, Properties, Queries
• HTL (Sightly), Sling Models, WCM Core Components
• Workflows, Launchers, Schedulers, Event Handlers

Dev & Ops Stack

• Java 25, Maven multi-module project structure
• Git, GitHub / GitLab, trunk-based development
• Docker, Kubernetes, Adobe Cloud Manager
• CI/CD – Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps
• REST / GraphQL APIs, Adobe I/O Runtime
• New Relic, Splunk, Datadog – observability

Preferred Qualifications

• Adobe Certified Expert – AEM Sites Developer or Architect certification.
• Experience with headless AEM delivery using Content Fragments, Experience Fragments, GraphQL API, and SPA Editor (React / Angular).
• Familiarity with SAML 2.0 / OAuth 2.0 / OIDC for AEM identity federation and Adobe IMS integration.
• Knowledge of content personalization strategies using Adobe Target and ContextHub / Client Context.
• Exposure to Adobe Commerce (Magento) integration with AEM for commerce-driven experiences.
• Experience with Fastly, Akamai, or CloudFront CDN configurations in conjunction with AEM Dispatcher.
• Background in digital experience composability, MACH architecture, or headless/hybrid CMS patterns.

Architecture Competencies

Candidates will be evaluated against the following architectural competency areas:

Competency Expected Depth Content Architecture Multi-site management, MSM / Live Copy, language copies, page templates, and content fragment modeling. Component Architecture Core Components extension, custom component design, dialog authoring (Coral UI / Touch UI), and Style System. Repository Design Oak index strategy (Lucene / Property indices), JCR query optimization, segment store vs. document store trade-offs. Security Model Closed User Groups (CUGs), service user ACLs, Sling security, replication agent authentication, and enforcement. Cloud Native AEM AEMaaCS constraints, Immutable repository pattern, RDE usage, Front-End pipeline, and Config pipeline. Integration Patterns Event-driven architecture via Adobe I/O Events, REST/GraphQL API design, AEM connectors, and Externalizer configuration. Dispatcher & CDN Dispatcher flush agents, caching rules, filter configuration, vanity URLs, and CDN cache-control strategies.