Adobe Interns Create the Future of Tech

Story by Morgan Starkey**,** Studio Writer Intern

With over 450 interns hired this summer across the nation, Adobe has an abundance of rising talent from all across the world. Our tech interns spend their summer here working on innovative projects that are applied directly to the business. Hear firsthand from these three interns about their projects and #AdobeLife experiences.

Joyce Van Drost
Full Stack Web Developer Intern

When asked to describe her internship experience at Adobe this summer in one word, Joyce Van Drost, rising senior at Rutgers University, responded, “Rewarding.” Joyce has lived on the East Coast her entire life, growing up on Staten Island, and attending university in New Jersey. When offered the internship to be a Full Stack Web Developer across the country in San Francisco, a place she had never visited, she couldn’t resist.

Joyce initially started her college career in accounting, pursuing her love of math. But after a summer with Girls Who Code at Goldman Sachs, she discovered her true passion, and decided to pursue a career in technology. Through Girls Who Code, Joyce began to understand that computer science was not sitting behind a computer screen all day coding—a common misconception. “Computer science is about communicating and collaborating with peers to develop the best way to approach a problem.”

As a Full Stack Web Developer on the Adobe Stock team, Joyce was able to work on back-end coding and see the design changes her code made on the mobile site. “I was surprised by how much was involved,” she said of the challenging but rewarding work. Through her internship, Joyce found that her interest lies in mobile development and making the user experience flawless. “I found this internship rewarding because of the incredible people, and the real impact I was making.”

Blake Wulfe
Data Science Research Intern

Blake Wulfe is another impressive intern who works as a Data Science Researcher in the Systems Technology Lab. During his first quarter at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, he completed an independent study on machine learning in which he created an algorithm that could predict the outcome of job interviews. But during his study, he found that his true interest lied in artificial intelligence. So after graduating, Blake sought out a masters program where he could pursue research into AI. And Stanford University, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley, was the right match.

After a recommendation from a friend, Blake came to Adobe with great interest in the artificial intelligence projects. Blake’s project focuses on personalized functionality within Adobe products. Specifically, he and fellow researchers are using imitation learning to design context-dependent macros for automatically performing recurring tasks such as cropping or styling photos. This approach of imitation learning has seen recent success in gaming and robotics, and Blake is hopeful that it can be applied to personalization within Adobe products.

His goal for the end of this internship is to write a research paper and present how this new method can be used. Of his experience, Blake said, “The most rewarding aspects of this internship is that I am perfectly aligned with what I want to do and what I am interested in. The number of passionate people I met and formed connections with has been an invaluable experience.”

Gagan Mand
Product Marketing Manager, Adobe Experience Manager Intern

Consider Gagan Mand a collector of degrees. Born and raised in India, she received her bachelors in engineering and chemical engineering. From there, she moved to the United States, attending the University of Illinois and pursuing her masters in aerospace engineering. After that, she spent four years working as an application engineer on the product delivery team at Siemens. “Over those four years, I had watched the product completely transform for customer needs. I felt so inspired by the product managers who created a roadmap for the product, that I decided to go back to school and earn my MBA at the University of Texas.”

When she started applying for internships, Gagan had other attractive offers, but her interview experience at Adobe set this company apart from the rest. Gagan had the unique experience of attending the MBA Project Expo at Adobe last summer, in which she got to meet a variety of teams explaining the fascinating projects they worked on. “I met such incredible people who were visibly passionate about their work. Adobe is a big company in a startup mode. There is such a culture of growth and mutual respect that was genuine and obvious to me. Transitioning into this diverse and welcoming company felt very natural.” She was introduced to her project before summer and couldn’t have been more thrilled.

This summer she worked on creating a customer journey map for our Adobe Experience Manager customers and helped identify key focus areas for not only enhancing customer experience but also realizing faster time to value. “The most rewarding part of this summer, apart from the culture, is the work I am doing actually matters and will continue to be used once I go back to school. I was given a lot of freedom with this project, which was intimidating but also very exciting.” When asked to sum up her internship in one word, she responded, “Intellectually stimulating” because one word wasn’t enough. “When we think about Adobe, we only think about a few products, but Adobe has so much more to offer. I am constantly learning about new products. The most exciting part for me is the promise Adobe holds for the future.”

Picture yourself at Adobe next Summer as an intern or University graduate? Head on over to our career site to explore opportunities and keep an eye out for when our Talent Team will be dropping by campuses!