How Data Science Intern, Kunal Khadilkar, is Creating the Future of Photoshop

This year, Adobe is proud to welcome more than 700 interns across the globe for our first ever virtual internship program. It’s been a blast welcoming our interns to their #AdobeLife, and seeing the incredible impact they’re making. To give you a peak into their internship, we’ll be featuring our Adobe Interns from across the business and across the world. Read on to learn how Data Science Intern, Kunal Khadilkar, is spending his virtual internship at Adobe.

Which University are you currently enrolled in & what is your internship title?

I am a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, pursuing Masters in Computational Data Science. I am a Data Science Intern at Adobe.

What attracted you to join Adobe?

Using technology to make an impact in people’s lives is something I have been passionate about since many years. Adobe’s continuous effort in creating digital experiences to help millions of users, attracted me to join this organization, as it closely aligned with my interests. Apart from just the technical highlights, Adobe’s pioneering efforts in empowering minorities and people from diverse backgrounds, made me realize that even as an intern, I can help drive social change and build a more inclusive world for everyone.

What is your main project this summer?

I am working with the Digital Imaging Analytics team, on the project of Photoshop User Segmentation. As part of the project, I am developing a predictive model to classify millions of Photoshop users into appropriate categories based on their usage patterns, time spent in creating Photoshop projects, and more. This project will help in providing a more personalized experience to the users, with curated recommendations, tips and tutorials, by automatically detecting their area of interest. An exciting part of my project is that I get a chance to collaborate with various research, engineering and management teams, exposing me to an end-to-end data science project experience, right from reading and implementing research papers, building data driven models as well as analyzing the impact of the solution from a product management perspective.

How has it been like being a virtual intern?

The internship experience has been great. Kudos to the University Talent Team for a smooth and seamless transition to a virtual internship setup. I enjoy the fun virtual events organized by the Talent team, where I get to meet and interact with interns all over the world.

I am fortunate to be a part of a wonderful team at Digital Imaging. They have given me a lot of freedom to carry out my own tasks, explore creative ideas and collaborate with different teams at Adobe. One more thing which stood out for me, during the internship, is the encouragement my team has given me to learn new skills, both technical and non-technical. Having a technical background and stepping into the professional world for the first time, I was eager to know more about the management principles that help in driving a solution. Due to Adobe’s wide range of learning resources available for interns, I get a chance to do Harvard’s Management certifications over the weekends and apply them in practice during the weekdays.

With these unprecedented times, Adobe’s mission to change the world through digital experiences has never been more relevant, and I’m proud to play a part in this change.

Be sure to check out more of our intern stories on the University page.