Divita Vohra ’17 finds her engineering rhythm at Spotify

When Divita Vohra ’17 graduated from the computer engineering program at Virginia Tech, she knew exactly what she didn’t want to be: an engineer.

“Computer engineering and software development was such a struggle for me,” said Vohra, who was named the 2017 outstanding senior for the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “I was good at it, but it didn’t feel easy, or like the best fit to continue doing forever, if I wanted to pursue a career that I would be fully passionate and happy about.”

In her first role at Capital One, Vohra pivoted to product management, the process of overseeing a product through every stage, from conception to launch, and beyond. For her, it was an opportunity to drive large-scale impact, while staying close to the tech details. 

While there, she joined the Capital One Center for machine learning (ML), eventually ending up on the central ML team; at the same time, she completed her master’s in computer science from Georgia Tech, focusing on interactive intelligence.

“And then I was recruited by Spotify to join their centralized ML platform team,” Vohra said. “It was really one of those moments where it felt like destiny. It was just this perfect combination of everything I love coming together.”

She’s been at Spotify for almost four years now, and works as the senior product manager in AI Foundations and Infrastructure. Vohra chatted about her career at Spotify; how users experience machine learning and artificial intelligence in the platform; and her best advice for Hokie engineering students.

When I first started at Spotify, I worked on our machine learning (ML) platform. I was challenged like never before and in the best way possible. I led initiatives like helping Spotify stay compliant with regulation around recommendation systems and then also help them introduce infrastructure to innovate and explore different ML paradigms for our user facing experiences. 

Now, I have transitioned to leading AI infrastructure in Spotify's AI foundation organization, where I help shape the future of AI at Spotify and build some user experiences using this core infrastructure. I span the whole life cycle, the whole end-to-end experience all the way from the infrastructure that enables these models to run at scale, to the experiences that people are actually touching everyday. 

And it's exactly what I wanted to do – to push AI forward in a way that I feel is responsible, inclusive, and impactful. I'm still on that journey and I'm learning every day.

More than anything, I just want to be one of those builders and creators of a world where AI is deeply ingrained in our daily lives, and to use AI for good, making sure that the diverse voices of today's world are heard.

At the core, our ambition is to create new opportunities for discovery and connection between listeners, artists and creators. And we do this in two ways: by fuelling user experiences built around personalized recommendations and machine learning, and more recently, by leveraging  generative AI to redefine the way users engage with music discovery. 

For traditional ML-powered experiences, you’ve probably interacted with features like searching for a song. While naturally the key focus is on serving you content based on the intent of your search, some elements might be personalized to you, e.g. based on what you recently listened to.

More recently, we've been expanding into the generative AI space. For example, we launched the Spotify AI DJ a couple years ago and, more recently, AI playlists, a feature where you can enter a prompt and Spotify will generate a playlist for you.

Another thing we do is recommend content that is less popular, to find hidden gems we think people will like. That's also our way of promoting lower-tiered creators and getting users to come out of their bubble.

We're constantly trying to innovate, trying to learn. And we take that user feedback to fold into what we end up building next.

The world is changing. I think a lot of people are worried about “AI taking my job,” or what the state of the world will look like when they graduate. Rather than trying to predict every shift, I think we need to just focus on building a strong foundation so we can adapt and specialize as new opportunities arise. 

For me, engineering provided that foundation, and I still would say it provides that foundation because it provides that problem solving mindset and technical grounding that is so necessary in whatever you may do. If you're in this field, it also teaches you resilience and grit, and those are transferable skills that you're going to use everywhere. 

Secondly, let your passion guide you and stay open to how that passion may evolve. The things that excite you today may change as you gain new experiences and become exposed to new things. That's totally OK. Flexibility, adaptability, and a sense of curiosity will be your biggest assets and let them lead you to the destination that you're meant to be. 

The third is don't stop learning. Earning your degree is just the beginning, it's a lifelong journey. I think the most successful people are the ones who remain curious, who consistently embrace challenges, and then continue to expand their knowledge. If you approach these next phases of life with curiosity, the hard work will be worth it.