Job Description
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 campus is in Sydney. We also have a campus in Melbourne and co-working spaces in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. But you have choice in where and how you work. That means if you want to do your thing in the office (if you’re near one), at home or a bit of both, it’s up to you.
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.
At the moment, this role is focused on:
- Shaping the Python language ecosystem with a strong product and platform mindset, defining clear development patterns and documentation in partnership with Infra and Product teams to support Canva’s broader AI strategy.
- Architecting, building and delivering high-impact solutions that uplift the Python developer experience at Canva, ensuring high standards of engineering excellence.
- Advocating for Python engineering best practices across the organization, influencing teams and aligning development patterns to Canva’s long-term strategy.
- Developing internal observability tooling and metrics that give the team actionable insights, enabling informed, targeted decisions on where to invest in the Python ecosystem.
- Driving org-wide ecosystem migrations and tooling transformations, owning design, rollout, telemetry, communication, and long-term maintenance strategies.
- Shaping and executing the long-term vision for IDE developer tooling, ensuring our tools evolve to meet the needs of Python engineers and industry trends.
You’re probably a match if
- You have expert-level Python experience, with familiarity in modern development ecosystems and tools such as Bazel being a plus.
- You have demonstrated leadership and ownership of complex, high-impact engineering initiatives, with a strong sense of accountability for outcomes.
- You have a deep commitment to engineering excellence and systems architecture, with the ability to design for scale, reliability, and strong non-functional foundations.
- You have extensive experience with containerization, Terraform, and GitOps, and a solid understanding of how to build and operate production-grade infrastructure.
- You have a background in integrating ML applications into platform or backend systems, with an understanding of AI/ML toolchains and their operational requirements.
- You can translate customer and developer needs into impactful technical solutions, applying a product mindset to improve developer experience at scale.
About The Group
We are part of Developer Workflows, shaping the end-to-end engineering experience to build, test, deploy, and operate software at Canva. We bring together developer advocacy, product thinking, and deep technical expertise. The Backend Workflows team focuses on empowering backend engineers by removing friction from the software development lifecycle and delivering intuitive, scalable workflows. We collaborate across platform and product teams to compose seamless backend experiences that support Canva’s rapid growth. Together, we create the foundations that enable every engineer to do the best work of their lives – and directly contribute to Canva’s long-term vision and success.
About the Role
We’re on a mission to elevate Python into a first-class experience across Canva, unlocking the full potential of our ML/AI and backend engineering teams. As a Senior Python Software Engineer in Backend Workflows, you will lead the design and delivery of workflows, tooling, and best practices that make Python development fast, reliable, and frictionless. Your work will shape how engineers write, test, build, and operate Python code everyday at scale – directly empowering teams who are building the AI-powered capabilities that define Canva’s future. We work closely with ML, backend, and platform engineers to deeply understand their challenges and craft solutions that accelerate their impact. This is a highly influential role where your contributions will have broad, long-lasting impact on Canva’s engineering velocity and AI strategy.
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 stack 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 see AI as a powerful amplifier of creativity and technology at Canva. We’re evolving how we assess AI skills in our Technology hiring experience – you’ll tackle interactive, real-time challenges that reflect the kind of work we do. In some interviews, you may also be asked to solve a problem using an AI tool to show how you approach challenges with tech by your side. Your recruitment partner will walk you through what to expect. 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.
