Staff Software Engineer

Staff Software Engineer - Web Platform (Frontend)Overview

Join Canva's Web Platform team to redefine how the world experiences design. This role focuses on shaping Canva's web platform and delivering scalable, high‑performance frontend solutions.

Where and How You Can Work

Our flagship campus is in Sydney. We also have a campus in Melbourne and co-working spaces in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. You can work in the office, at home, or a mix—where and how you work is up to you.

What You'd Be Doing In This Role

As Canva scales, change is part of the DNA. This role gives you the flavour of the work you'll start with, understanding it will evolve. At the moment, this role is focused on:

• Driving product performance improvements by exploring emerging technologies and applying them across key product experiences.
• Leading architectural efforts around code bundling and delivery, evaluating and evolving systems to support scale, reduce bottlenecks, and enable engineering velocity.
• Developing tooling and systems that empower engineers with visibility into performance regressions before they reach production—through automated detection and validation workflows.
• Collaborating across multiple teams to lead technically complex, large-scale, ambiguous initiatives—bringing high-level expertise, context sharing, and strategic clarity to drive scalable solutions.
• Shaping the future of Canva's web platform, blending product impact with infrastructure evolution to support millions of users while enabling sustainable engineering growth.

You're Probably a Match If You Have

• Deep experience with core web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, MobX or similar) and backend stacks (Node.js, Java), with a track record of delivering high-quality solutions across the stack.
• A strong grasp of build systems and performance tooling—from bundling and minification to web vitals—and the ability to architect for scale and speed.
• A history of leading end-to-end technical initiatives, influencing not just how features are built, but what gets built and why.
• Proven ability to drive clarity in high-ambiguity spaces, tackling complex or undefined technical problems and aligning multiple teams toward a shared direction.
• Experience operating in large-scale environments—managing cross-functional collaboration, influencing technical roadmaps, and aligning with stakeholders across the org.
• A habit of initiating and scaling cross-team efforts, especially in hybrid product-platform spaces where coordination and strategic thinking are critical.
• A mindset that balances long-term architectural thinking with hands-on execution, including mentoring others through design reviews, spikes, and implementation guidance.
• Practical experience creating and advocating for performance observability systems, embedding performance goals into the developer workflow.
• The ability to translate performance metrics into real user impact—beyond the numbers, showing how they affect experience and product outcomes.
• A drive to contribute to company-wide goals, particularly in areas with broad customer impact—such as improving the help experience for millions of users.

About The Team

At Web Platform, our mission is to drive Canva's web product toward a scalable, high-performance architecture. We partner closely with product teams to build, innovate, and optimise core web capabilities—while also supporting their adoption at scale through education and strategic support.

• Boosting product performance by exploring emerging technologies—such as smarter data loading, server-side rendering, and advanced caching strategies.
• Building systems that enable confident, high-quality, and performance-aware code releases.
• Optimising our bundling and delivery pipelines to ensure they scale seamlessly with Canva's growing engineering organisation.

About The Role

As a Staff Frontend Engineer, you'll operate at the subgroup level, working across initiatives that span 3–4 platform teams, helping shape the direction of Canva's web platform. You'll have the opportunity to lead forward-looking projects, including:

• Designing and delivering JavaScript-based RPC clients to power seamless communication between our frontend and backend systems.
• Exploring the design and adoption of React Server Components, contributing to the evolution of Canva's rendering architecture.
• Shaping the future of our code bundling and delivery infrastructure, ensuring it scales with the needs of a growing product and engineering organisation.
• Identifying the benefits and limitations of existing technologies, and guiding teams toward architectural decisions that unblock scale and improve developer experience.
• Contributing high-level technical expertise and strategic direction to the development of tools that detect performance regressions before they reach production.

What's In It For You?

Achieving our big goals motivates us to work hard—and we offer a stack of benefits to support you both at work and outside of it.

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents and carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup, and more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to recharge and support you personally

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.

Other Stuff To Know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process. Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.

Job details

• Seniority level: Executive
• Employment type: Full-time
• Job function: Production, Distribution, and Engineering
• Industries: Software Development and IT Services and IT Consulting

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