Adobe’s Digital Media Business Unit focuses on advancing state-of-the-art content and driving digital transformation of industries. It provides tools and services that enable individuals, small businesses, and enterprises to create, publish, promote, manage, and monetize their content anywhere through Creative Cloud and Document Cloud.  

The Digital Media team in Bucharest is dedicated to empowering creativity in all possible ways. Our portfolio currently includes multiple projects, covering a myriad of modern technologies that naturally target end-user delight and productivity. They stretch product teams beyond business-as-usual comfort and expose developers to the newest available platforms and technology stacks. Our colleagues have the opportunity to contribute to Adobe XD, Adobe Text Engine (ATE), Adobe Fonts, Creative Cloud Services (through projects such as Machine Learning for Photoshop, New File Workflows or the App Home Screens), Adobe Stock, Business Catalyst, and a brand-new stealth project focused on Web-based creativity.

Photoshop’s Neural Filters – a massive feature developed with the help of Romanian engineers

For most people, Photoshop is one of the first things that comes to mind when people think of Adobe. Our team of brilliant engineers in Bucharest has recently taken the tough challenge of revolutionizing portraits and photography editing workflows, using Machine Learning. The algorithms behind this new feature, called Neural Filters, have been built in Romania and are now available in Adobe Photoshop, for everyone’s awe and excitement.

Bogdan Sumanariu, the Engineering Manager of the team that took part in making Photoshop one of world’s most advanced AI applications for creatives, shared that “Working on the Neural Filters project was a continuous battle against time. You have to understand the inner-workings of Photoshop and choose the right framework that will give the maximum flexibility for User Experience. It takes research in Machine Learning models that can guarantee users’ positive reactions. We continuously interacted with Photoshop’s community and iterate over the proposed workflows and the quality of our outputs. We won this battle thanks to our extraordinary, dedicated, and entrepreneurial team, with a broad skill-set. The project has, at its foundation, countless hours of brainstorming between all team members (either on the C++, JS, UX or ML side) and the result of it is astonishing – not only for the end user but also for the actual engineering team. The team found itself a new mojo – the confidence it can deliver amazing things that couldn’t even have been imagined one year back. And in the end, this is what matters: the people and their confidence to use their skills (already discovered or not) at full potential .”

Adobe XD – a UX design platform created in Romania

Another impressive project currently developed by Digital Media Bucharest is Adobe XD. This is a user experience design platform where teams create the world’s best experiences at scale, while also taking advantage of all Adobe’s leading Creative Cloud tools.  

Built on a modern technology stack and available on a variety of platforms (desktop, web, mobile) - XD was born with the bold purpose of making design a breeze for everyone. With XD you can wireframe, animate, prototype, collaborate, and more.

XD Bucharest drives the Design tooling agenda, while also working on key initiatives regarding cross-product architectural and performance improvements. They come to work every day with the desire to enable UI/UX designers to create engaging, beautiful, and personalized experiences.  And amazing as this may seem, developers have fun and feel empowered through every step of this journey.

Mihnea Vlad-Ovidenie is the leader of the XD Romania engineering organization and one member of the small team who seeded the project back in 2015. We asked him to give us more insights on his journey and especially on how this project evolved from an idea to the biggest investment in the local Digital Media business unit:

“Our journey within XD started with a small team of 6 people initially focused on the import and export of assets in standard formats like PNG, SVG, and PDF. From the beginning, the prospect of working on a young code base attracted us, as well as by XD’s modern architecture and unique blend of development languages: C++ and JavaScript. Ever since, XD grew to become one of the major players in the market. Our engineers in Bucharest left a long-lasting mark with a string of successes: the first Windows 10 implementation in November 2017, the seamless interoperability with the flagship Creative Cloud applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects in 2018, the 2019 improvements for text, design, and layout tools culminating with the exhibit of the 3D Transforms feature on a virtual MAX 2020 stage. XD’s success so far could not have been possible without the involvement of over 50 outstanding colleagues from our engineering, product management, and user experience design departments – all based in Romania. Our journey within XD continues unabated and we are laser-focused on strengthening XD’s architectural foundation for the next 5+ years of investments. It is an exciting time to be part of this effort and I am very optimistic about our future!”

Digital Media Romania – a place where every team member is valued, and every voice heard

Digital Media Romania has been continuously growing at a steady pace over the past years and the business directions & priorities have naturally evolved in time. What hasn’t changed, though, is one of the organization’s most audacious objectives and core values: to maintain a cozy, family atmosphere, where people would feel appreciated and included and where each voice would be heard and respected.

Paul Chirita, Director of Engineering for Digital Media Romania, explains the underlying strategy: “It has been a challenge to maintain this family-like atmosphere as our team keeps growing. Especially during the past year, we needed to nurture existing relationships and also build trust with new colleagues in a completely remote state. It wasn't a simple endeavor, but we remained fully engaged and focused on our goal to succeed as one team. We took time to adapt, iterate, and learn from the new status quo. We created space for mutual support, we listened more, and we found creative ways to have fun while continuing to nourish our culture of excellence, as well as personal and professional growth.”

Adobe Romania is on a mission to create a diverse and inclusive workplace, foster innovation, educate and grow their employees. Create everything from gorgeous graphics to immersive user experiences. Explore the careers at Adobe in engineering and design HERE.

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