Adobe Champion Spotlight Q&A with Oshyn’s Esteban Bustamante

Adobe has announced its Champions class of 2025-2026, and Esteban Bustamante, Technical Architect at Oshyn, has been named among them. This is Esteban’s second straight year being recognized as one of only 40 Adobe Experience Manager Champions worldwide. Adobe selects Champions for being “at the forefront of industry leadership and shaping the future of Adobe applications.”

Through the Adobe Champion Program, participants collaborate closely with product teams to influence the evolution of Adobe applications. They also join a worldwide community of experts, exchanging insights and engaging in exclusive opportunities that foster knowledge sharing and thought leadership.

This recognition underscores Oshyn's commitment to delivering unparalleled Adobe expertise for clients. In this brief Q&A, Esteban explains what it means to be a Champion and the benefits it can bring to clients.

Key Takeaways

• Adobe Champions offer an added layer of assurance on client projects, leveraging their extensive experience, which is recognized by Adobe and the broader community.

• Earning Adobe's Champion recognition requires years of in-depth technical knowledge of a chosen product and regular engagement with the broader community.

• Clients can rest assured that they receive the best technical support, rooted in informed business decisions.

• Esteban was one of only 40 Adobe Experience Manager Champions selected from the diverse pool of applicants.

What does it mean to be a Champion? What are the benefits, and what does it take to become one?

Esteban Bustamante: To me, the Adobe Champion badge represents trust. Adobe and the community are signaling that my contributions matter, which is a proud career milestone. It also provides clients with extra assurance that they’re partnering with an expert aligned with Adobe’s best practices.

Becoming one takes years of in-depth knowledge and expertise as an AEM practitioner. It also means being passionate about sharing that expertise with the broader community and engaging through industry events and the Experience League. Often, this involves spending multiple hours per month studying for and earning Adobe certifications, as well as making contributions to the community.

You need to be eager to share your own experience with everyone, whether they’re just starting out or they have more years of experience than you. At the end of the day, the goal is to improve the products, the community, and the client experience.

What problem in AEM hooked you early, and how did that shape your specialty?

EB: I’ve been working with Java since I learned to code and I got started with AEM when it was still known as Day CQ, so it felt natural to continue working with both Java and AEM. It’s been equal parts fun and challenging to work with the product as it's evolved, especially with a well-known brand like Adobe behind product development.

What extra advantage does a client get from working with an AEM Champion? Can you share one recent example?

EB: Clients know that by working with a Champion, they’re getting someone on their project who is trusted by Adobe and the wider community. Things like selecting the best patterns and techniques, or validating technology decisions, are done to ensure they serve the business requirements and not just use the latest technology for its own sake.

I’ve seen that trust grow firsthand, working on a recent project where we migrated a major US city website from a legacy system to AEM. Since the project wasn’t started from scratch, we had to rearchitect some aspects of the implementation and ensure that what we were doing would eventually scale for hundreds of sites. In the end, the client receives something that isn’t just technically good, but also has the impact they were envisioning. For that project, there was also a 99.6% customer satisfaction score from the city residents, so that added some extra validation.

What issues can arise on a project when you don't have someone as experienced as a Champion guiding the work?

EB: Overall, it’s a matter of selecting a partner who either has the right certifications and experience or one who doesn’t. The difference might seem slight, but unfortunately, it can lead to extended delays and heavy sunk costs in the region of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars if you select the wrong one.

Is there one personal habit or framework you rely on to keep projects predictable?

EB: We have some well-established frameworks and processes that we follow at Oshyn. The Wave approach is followed from discovery and design to implementation and post-launch. We validate the feasibility of every step in the project and only implement it with client and agency buy-in at each iteration.

Also, once a site is launched, we handle maintenance, including bug fixes, feature adjustments, and infrastructure upkeep. Then, of course, we use industry best practices and tools, such as Confluence, Jira, and GitLab, to keep everything on track.

Did your direct collaboration with the Champions community change an implementation choice?

EB: Being a champion puts you in a unique and exclusive group of colleagues who are also experts with Adobe technology. It hasn’t changed a choice I’ve made, as we already have numerous built-in frameworks for achieving the best outcomes, but it does help me validate ideas and double-check approaches.