Abusive sales comp situation - keep looking - Sales Account Executive Adobe Employee Review

3.0
Nov 20, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Adobe as a company is 5 stars. It is creative and they have great people working there, ESPP is great, and the benefits are amazing

Cons

If you are looking for a job in tech sales, stay away from Adobe for a few years until they get big-boy sales ops in place, and until they start treating QBSRs as more than whipping posts for a cost of sales metric. For this review, please know I left under good circumstances. I was not hit as hard with what follows as some, but I got out while the gettin' was good. Adobe sales comp is totally [insert your worst curse word here] messed up. They have a negative dollar to dollar hit to quota for any customer who cancels. This means you inherit a customer who is cancelling a $500K - $1M license and you are immediately that much in the hole. For a relationship you didn't start, and had no influence on. They have tried to "fix" it, but their fix was retroactive and I have friends who ended up owing Adobe $20K - $30K in COMPENSATION after the "fix". Some people I know haven't seen a commission this year and now owe Adobe more money than their entire variable compensation. It's a horror story.

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5.0
Jun 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits Treated well Sabbatical Policy

Cons

Large Sometimes bloated Political Manager dependent

4.0
Jun 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Refreshing focus on employee wellness * Brilliant colleagues * Compelling problems on interesting tools * Good work/life balance culture... generally (see cons) I've been at a few big tech companies and Adobe is one of my favorites. I feel empowered to make impactful changes here, I'm constantly stretching myself in fun ways, and the products we make are incredible. Product and engineering have big dreams, and all the resources we need to realize them.

Cons

* Big time crunch culture around arbitrary goals By far my biggest disappointment has been just how hard product pushes on big projects with arbitrary deadlines and difficult scope. It turns into cutting corners and delivering sub-par experiences even though we absolutely have the talent and capability to make some exceptional things if we just let the dang thing bake a few more months. I'd be more impressed with the tight clip if the goals were reasonable for good business reasons, but as far as I can tell the reason usually boils down to "some high-level manager wanted X and thought Y sounded like a good target date". * Comp growth leaves something to be desired. Raises feel pretty flat, though it's not the worst thing since stock rewards can be pretty good as appropriate for performance. Career progression is pretty good here too - I just find it odd how stale the base pay increases are year to year.

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