Staff Frontend Engineer - level above Senior- Editing Performance

Title: Staff Frontend Engineer (level above Senior) Editing Performance, Design exp

Location: Sydney Australia

Job Description:

• Employees work in a hybrid mode
• Full-time
• Recruitment type: Permanent

• Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Where and how you can work

Our flagship Sydney campus is uniquely Canva - an extension of our Surry Hills neighbourhood. It’s a thoughtfully designed space with plenty of room to collaborate, focus, and connect.

This role is based in Sydney, and we’re looking for someone who calls it home. Our hybrid way of working gives you the flexibility to work remotely, and to come together on campus for meaningful in-person collaboration and connection when it matters most. We trust our Canvanauts to choose the balance that empowers them and their team to achieve their goals.

What you’d be doing in this role

As Canva scales change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think that's all part of the fun. So this will give you the flavour of the type of things you'll be working on when you start, but this will likely evolve.

• Design, develop and deploy solutions and hands-on software development – working closely with leads, designers, and product managers to deliver features and experiments to our customers worldwide

• Primarily working on web frontend with Typescript, but may need to work with other languages and environments

• Facilitate knowledge sharing and optimally advocate for engineering needs to non-technical team members within the group

• Models initiative and ownership in achieving goals, improving processes and solutions

• Finds opportunities for cross-team collaboration to work on new insights and improvements that help achieve our goals

You're probably a match if

• Experience in a software development environment, ideally with experience in building internal/external SDKs or APIs.

• Our frontend stack consists of JavaScript, HTML, CSS, React, TypeScript, MobX.

• Firmly grounded computer science and engineering fundamentals including asynchronous programming, data structures, solution design, architecture, and design patterns.

• Understanding of browser rendering pipeline, event handling, WebWorkers, WebGL/WebGPU would be a bonus, but not required.

• Previous experience in working collaboratively with team members and communicating effectively.

• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to break large projects down into smaller ones and deliver on them through others.

• Passion for performance debugging and benchmarking

About the team

The Editing Group at Canva is responsible for the core design experience that powers millions of creations every day. From intuitive design tools to real-time collaboration, this group ensures that Canva’s editor remains smooth, scalable, and feature-rich. Engineers in the Editing Group tackle complex challenges like rendering performance, interactive design elements, and seamless cross-platform editing, all while keeping the experience intuitive for users of all skill levels. Whether it’s enhancing text capabilities, refining image editing, or optimising the user interface, the Editing Group is at the heart of Canva’s mission to make design simple and accessible.

The Editing Performance team is committed to ensuring our editor functions flawlessly. We concentrate on accelerating page load times, minimizing interaction delays, and addressing memory management to prevent crashes. Their mission is to maintain a fast and reliable editor for everyone, regardless of whether we have one billion users or more. Performance is crucial; it must never obstruct the introduction of new features or impede business use.

What's in it for you?

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too. We also offer a range of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.

Here's a taste of what's on offer:

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too

• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers

• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more

• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports 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.

We celebrate all types of skills and backgrounds at Canva so even if you don’t feel like your skills quite match what’s listed above - we still want to hear from you!

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.