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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for AEM Technical Lead

💰 $120,000 - $170,000

EngineeringDigital ExperienceAdobe AEMCMSWeb Platform

🎯 Role Definition

The AEM Technical Lead is the primary technical owner for Adobe Experience Manager implementations and ongoing platform evolution. This role combines hands-on architecture, custom development, integrations across the Adobe Experience Cloud, performance and security optimization, CI/CD and automation, and technical leadership of engineering teams. The AEM Technical Lead partners with product owners, UX designers, DevOps, QA, and business stakeholders to deliver multi-site, multi-language web experiences, migrations, and platform upgrades while enforcing governance, best practices, and observability.

Key SEO and LLM keywords: AEM Technical Lead, Adobe Experience Manager, AEM as a Cloud Service, Sling, OSGi, HTL/Sightly, JCR/CRX, AEM Sites, AEM Assets, Dispatcher, CI/CD, AEM migration, Adobe Experience Cloud integration.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior AEM Developer / AEM Specialist
  • Java/Backend Developer with CMS experience
  • Front-end Engineer with AEM/React/SPA experience

Advancement To:

  • Principal AEM Architect / Lead Solutions Architect
  • Head of Digital Experience / Director, Web Platforms
  • Enterprise Solutions Architect (Adobe Experience Cloud)

Lateral Moves:

  • Adobe Consulting Technical Lead
  • CMS Architect / Digital Experience Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Architect and design scalable, modular AEM solutions (Sites, Assets, Forms) that meet business requirements, ensure maintainability, and align with enterprise architecture standards and cloud best practices.
  • Lead end-to-end delivery for AEM implementations including requirements analysis, solution design, development, testing, deployment, and post-launch support for multi-site, multi-language experiences.
  • Provide technical leadership and hands-on development: implement OSGi services, Sling models, JCR content structures, custom servlets, workflows, and HTL components following AEM best practices.
  • Drive migration strategies and execution plans for legacy CMS to AEM or AEM Classic to AEM as a Cloud Service migrations, including content model design, automated migration tooling, and cutover planning.
  • Design and implement integrations with Adobe Experience Cloud products (Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Launch), third-party systems (CRM, DAM, PIM), and RESTful/GraphQL APIs ensuring reliable data exchange and security.
  • Lead the adoption and improvement of CI/CD pipelines for AEM using tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, Adobe Cloud Manager, Maven, SonarQube and automated deployment to AEM environments.
  • Manage, tune and configure AEM Dispatcher rules and CDN/edge caching (Akamai, Cloudflare) to optimize content delivery, cache invalidation, and security.
  • Architect and implement AEM as a Cloud Service patterns, run modes, and cloud-native deployments; establish environment strategy for author, publish, and dispatcher layers.
  • Own platform health, observability and incident response: implement monitoring, logging, error tracking, performance profiling, and runbooks for AEM production systems.
  • Establish component library, reusable content fragments, experience fragments, and design system integration to accelerate time-to-market and enforce content governance.
  • Lead performance optimization initiatives, including benchmarking, thread dump analysis, GC tuning, query tuning (JCR-SQL2), and template/component refactoring to meet SLAs.
  • Define and enforce code quality standards, architecture principles, branching strategy, code reviews, pair-programming, and technical documentation for AEM teams.
  • Mentor and coach developers and engineers on AEM best practices, Sling/OSGi patterns, HTL, Java development, security hardening and automated testing strategies.
  • Collaborate with product owners, UX/UI designers, and content teams to translate business requirements into component-based AEM solutions and to support editorial workflows and governance.
  • Lead security reviews and remediation for AEM deployments, including access control, dispatcher security, SSL/TLS configuration, content sanitization and vulnerability scanning.
  • Plan and execute upgrades and patching strategies across AEM versions and underlying Java/OSGi dependencies while maintaining zero or minimal downtime for production.
  • Design extensible content models using Content Fragments, Experience Fragments and editable templates to support personalized and omnichannel experiences.
  • Drive automation and developer productivity improvements: scaffolders, archetypes, local dev environment orchestration (Docker, SDK), and test automation frameworks (JUnit, Arquillian).
  • Collaborate with DevOps and cloud teams to containerize AEM workloads where applicable and to define backup/DR, autoscaling, and capacity planning strategies.
  • Manage stakeholder expectations and delivery risk by providing transparent roadmaps, release plans, sprint-level estimations, and go/no-go criteria for production deployments.
  • Execute proof of concepts for emerging AEM capabilities (Headless, SPA Editor, GraphQL, Content Services) and recommend adoption paths aligned to business value.
  • Oversee technical vendor relationships for AEM modules, third-party integrations, and Adobe professional services engagements; evaluate and select solutions based on long-term total cost of ownership.
  • Define and enforce governance policies for content lifecycle, taxonomy, tagging, and digital asset management to improve findability, reuse, and SEO.
  • Coordinate cross-team impact analysis for platform changes (API changes, template refactors, schema updates) and drive migration or deprecation plans.
  • Participate in recruitment and hiring for AEM and Java engineering roles; help define technical interview criteria and onboarding plans.
  • Prepare architecture artifacts, run technical workshops, and present solution designs and trade-offs to executive stakeholders, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
  • Drive cost optimization of AEM infrastructure and Adobe Experience Cloud usage by sizing environments appropriately and recommending licensing or configuration changes.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc content and platform requests from editorial and marketing teams, troubleshoot authoring issues, and implement quick configuration fixes where appropriate.
  • Contribute to the platform roadmap by identifying opportunities for modernization, feature enhancements, and technical debt reduction.
  • Collaborate with business units and product managers to translate marketing and editorial needs into AEM component requirements, templates and authoring patterns.
  • Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, and agile ceremonies; estimate technical work and maintain sprint-level commitments.
  • Assist QA and release management with complex integration and regression testing strategies for AEM features and multi-environment deployments.
  • Provide subject matter expertise for compliance, accessibility (WCAG), and SEO best practices within AEM components and templates.
  • Maintain and update runbooks and knowledge base articles to support handoffs and reduce time-to-resolution for common editorial and operational issues.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep expertise in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM Sites, Assets, Forms) and AEM as a Cloud Service architecture, deployment models, and operational practices.
  • Strong Java development skills and proven experience building OSGi modules, Sling Models, servlets, and JCR repository design.
  • Proficient with HTL/Sightly, JSP (legacy), and front-end technologies: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and modern frameworks (React, Angular, or Vue) for SPA/Headless integrations.
  • Experience with AEM component development, editable templates, clientlibs, content fragments, experience fragments, and template structure design.
  • Hands-on experience with Dispatcher configuration, CDN integration, cache invalidation strategies and web application firewalls.
  • Familiarity with Adobe Experience Cloud integrations: Adobe Analytics, Target, Launch/Launch by Adobe, Campaign, CDP, and Tag Management.
  • CI/CD tooling and automation: Maven, Git, Jenkins/GitLab CI, Adobe Cloud Manager, Nexus/Artifactory, and unit/integration testing frameworks (JUnit, Mockito).
  • Containerization and cloud-native platform knowledge (Docker, Kubernetes, AEM Cloud Service patterns); familiarity with AWS/Azure/GCP for hosting and infrastructure.
  • Performance tuning and memory management for AEM/Java applications; experience with profiling tools and analyzing thread dumps and heap dumps.
  • Security and compliance skills: OWASP, SAML/OIDC integrations, encryption, ACL design, and secure dispatcher practices.
  • API design and integration experience with RESTful services, GraphQL, and SOAP; understanding of authentication and authorization patterns.
  • Experience with development lifecycle tools: SonarQube, JIRA, Confluence, and Adobe-provided monitoring/logging solutions.
  • Migration tooling and strategy experience: content migration frameworks, Sling Content Distribution, and scripted ETL approaches for large content sets.
  • Knowledge of SEO fundamentals and how AEM features (rendering, structured data, canonical tags) influence discoverability.

Soft Skills

  • Strong leadership and people-management skills: mentoring, technical coaching, and leading distributed engineering teams.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication: translate complex technical concepts into business-focused language and executive presentations.
  • Strategic thinker with the ability to balance long-term platform vision with short-term delivery needs and pragmatic trade-offs.
  • Problem-solving orientation: diagnose production incidents, prioritize fixes, and implement robust prevention strategies.
  • Collaborative mindset: work effectively with product managers, UX designers, QA, DevOps, and external vendors to deliver integrated solutions.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: stay current with Adobe product roadmap and industry trends, advocate for new patterns that drive value.
  • Strong stakeholder management and negotiation skills to align priorities across marketing, IT, and business stakeholders.
  • Detail-oriented with a focus on maintainable architecture, documentation, and repeatable processes.
  • Time management and prioritization to handle multiple concurrent projects and operational responsibilities.
  • Coaching and hiring skills to help build and scale high-performing AEM engineering teams.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or MBA with strong technical background preferred.
  • Adobe certifications (AEM Developer/Architect) and cloud certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP) are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Web Development / Human-Computer Interaction

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 7+ years of professional software development experience with at least 3-5 years focused on Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) implementations and 2+ years in a technical lead or architect role.

Preferred:

  • Proven track record leading AEM migrations, AEM as a Cloud Service projects, multi-site rollouts, or large-scale digital experience platforms.
  • Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments and with distributed teams, plus prior experience coordinating with marketing and content stakeholders.
  • Demonstrated ability to design enterprise-grade solutions, manage cross-functional dependencies, and deliver stable, secure, and scalable AEM platforms.
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