Sapna Gathani

Head of Design

Seattle, Washington, United States16 yrs 2 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Led 50+ cross-functional product initiatives.
Expert in AI-powered creative tools development.
Passionate about building inclusive, high-performing teams.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS product leader with expertise in AI and design technology.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Product DevelopmentAiWeb PrototypingSoftware Development

Other Skills

JavaScriptC++CSSHTMLCross-Functional CollaborationReactJSNodeJSAngularJSC#SQL ServerASP.NETSiebeleScriptjQueryMicrosoft SQL Server

About

I’m a product-driven engineering leader with over 13 years of experience building and scaling products that blend design, technology, and innovation. My career spans frontend engineering, design technology, and product development — leading teams that bring new ideas to life across Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, GenStudio, Stock and Firefly Enterprise. I specialize in defining and executing product strategies, partnering closely with Product, Design, and Engineering to deliver impactful user experiences. From AI-powered creative tools, early-stage prototypes to 0-1 products, I help teams move from concept to launch with clarity and momentum. My strengths lie in cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder alignment, and execution excellence — managing 5–6 complex projects at once while mentoring managers and individual contributors. I’ve driven success across 50+ product initiatives, connecting user insights, technical feasibility, and business goals to deliver meaningful outcomes. I’m passionate about building inclusive, high-performing teams, championing diversity in tech, and turning ambiguity into impact through clear strategy, empathy, and decisive action.

Experience

16 yrs 2 mos

Total Experience

4 yrs

Average Tenure

9 yrs 7 mos

Current Experience

Adobe

5 roles

Group Design Engineering Manager

Promoted

Feb 2025 – Present · 1 yr 4 mos

Lead a team of design technologists prototyping new features for Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Firefly Boards, helping shape the next generation of creative tools.
Partner with Product, Design, and Research to translate early concepts into validated product opportunities, driving execution across 50+ cross-functional projects.
Drove development of Generative AI features (e.g., Style Match, Prompting Experience, Ps - Reference Images, Upscaling, Harmonization) that advanced Adobe’s creative AI capabilities.
Helped bring 0-1 products to market like Firefly Boards, Project Stardust.
Revitalized the Object Compositing feature for Firefly Enterprise by identifying key customer pain points and aligning cross-functional teams, earning executive buy-in for a roadmap update within six weeks.
Manage multiple product initiatives simultaneously while fostering an inclusive, high-performing team culture built on empathy, trust, and clarity.
Team overview: http://bit.ly/3IPorQd
Project Contributions:
Photoshop Reference Image: http://bit.ly/472IaFj
Photoshop Generative Enhance: http://bit.ly/42jIdKf
Photoshop Harmonization: http://bit.ly/3ISAkEX
Photoshop PerfectBlend MAX Sneak: http://bit.ly/4gSWbZC
Illustrator Quick Pen Tool: http://bit.ly/4pRZuEr
Firefly Boards: http://bit.ly/42qjzYu
Firefly Custom Models: http://bit.ly/46A5muy
Firefly History Bar
Firefly Prompt Suggestions
Project Stardust: http://bit.ly/3WkHxkg
Project HiFi: http://bit.ly/488LtvL
Genstudio assorted experiments: https://tinyurl.com/5dd6z2dv

JavaScriptC++CSSHTMLAIProduct Development+1

Senior Design Engineering Manager

Promoted

Feb 2023 – Feb 2025 · 2 yrs

Good overview of what the team does:
https://adobe.design/stories/design-for-scale/the-unique-value-prototyping-brings-to-the-design-process
Project Contributions:
Adobe Firefly: https://firefly.adobe.com/
PS Generative Fill: https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/generative-fill.html
Project Stardust: https://tinyurl.com/8cyhacac
Adobe Express: http://bit.ly/adobe-express
Spectrum Token Visualization Tool: https://bit.ly/spectrum-token

JavaScriptHTMLCSSAIProduct Development

Design Engineering Manager II

Aug 2022 – Feb 2023 · 6 mos

Design Engineering Manager

Feb 2021 – Aug 2022 · 1 yr 6 mos

I lead a team of engineers on the Adobe Design Prototyping team which helps bring designs to life and helps product teams ship with more confidence. My responsibilities include translating designs to technical requirements, guiding my team on how best to prototype in order to optimize learnings, project planning each engagement end-end, doing code reviews and technical guidance for junior engineers, working with Designers, PMs and Researchers to plan, execute and user test.

JavaScriptHTMLCSSProduct Development

Senior Frontend Engineer

Nov 2016 – Feb 2021 · 4 yrs 3 mos

At Adobe, I have the unique opportunity to work in the very early stages of products. As part of the Adobe Design Prototyping team, my work involves taking what is often the 1st version of a new product's designs, building an end-end working web prototype, providing technical feasibility on various features to designers, participating in user research and being a part of the product conversation early on.
Some of the products I've built prototypes for are:
Photoshop: prototype the UI for organizing cloud documents,
Adobe XD: built the scroll animation for the new XD website: https://www.adobe.com/products/xd.html,
Adobe Fonts,
Adobe Sign: prototype a new sign experience for mobile web users,
Adobe Experience Cloud Campaigns,
and a few more unnamed new product initiatives
● Web Prototyping for Adobe Design(ReactJS, Redux, WebGL, AWS, NodeJS, SQL, Javascript, CSS, HTML, Webpack, GSAP)
Participate in early stage design discussions all the way through user research
Build high fidelity prototypes that validate designs for new/existing products/features
Work on web as well as mobile web prototypes
Often work on exploring cutting edge web features with limited support online
● Girls Who Code Teacher(July '17 - August '17)
Spent 2 months teaching 20 high school girls programming at the Girls Who Code class at Adobe.
Technologies taught - HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, Robotics, Scratch

JavaScriptHTMLCSSReactJSNodeJSWeb Prototyping

Factset

Senior Software Engineer

Feb 2012 – Nov 2016 · 4 yrs 9 mos · Norwalk, Connecticut

In addition to the team based contributions listed below, I did Intermediate Javascript training for new hires at FactSet.
Technologies - AngularJS, Jasmine+Karma, Javascript, ES6, NodeJS, HTML, CSS, Git, Gulp, Grunt, Bower
Built groupings - a core component of Factsets flagship next generation PA product
Built the UI dialogs as well as middle layer AngularJS support for creating, editing, deleting groups
Built the drag and drop functionality to move groups around in a huge N-ary tree
Improved speed and efficiency by 20% via loading parts of our model on demand instead of upfront
Exhaustive unit testing done using Jasmine and Karma
Built the first version of FactSet's Internal Research Notes product end to end

JavaScriptAngularJSHTMLCSSSoftware Development

Weiss asset management

Software Developer Intern

Jan 2011 – Sep 2011 · 8 mos · Boston, MA

Converted business specs to code by working closely with analysts and traders
Saved the ops team 2 hrs/day by building recon modules to tally company transactions with broker's
Expanded the trading module to incorporate new trade transactions
Developed and scheduled reports using SQL Server Reporting Services and VisualCron
Technologies: C#, SQL Server 2005/2008, LINQ, ASP.NET, SQL Server Reporting Services, VisualCron,

C#SQL ServerASP.NETSoftware Development

Ibm global business services

Associate Software Engineer

Aug 2008 – Oct 2009 · 1 yr 2 mos · Pune, India

Contributed to building a Siebel CRM module that reduced operational costs for a NY based client
Developed scripts for filtering records, workflows, business components, applets, and reports
Technologies: Siebel, eScript, Actuate Reports

SiebeleScriptSoftware Development