Staff Software Engineer - AI Developer Tooling Workflows

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, 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.

This Staff Software Engineer role demands deep technical expertise, strategic vision, and the ability to drive paradigm-shifting change in how software is built. You'll be at the forefront of the transformation from individual tool adoption to AI tooling paved paths and orchestrating multi-agent systems that fundamentally reshape Canva's engineering workflows.

This is a visionary technical leadership role for someone who can define entirely new domains, establish engineering practices that don't yet exist, and chart the course for how a 2000+ engineer organisation leverages AI to achieve step-change velocity improvements.

As a founding technical leader, you'll:

• Define the technical vision and architecture for AI-orchestrated developer workflows at Canva

• Establish new engineering paradigms around AI tooling, agent orchestration, and context engineering

• Architect foundational AI systems and frameworks that become the platform every engineer at Canva relies on

• Drive industry-leading practices in agentic AI development and enterprise-scale AI tooling adoption

• Shape and mentor engineers joining the expanded team through technical leadership and vision-setting

At the moment, this role is focused on:

• Solving challenges no one's solved before, with access to state-of-the-art tooling, models and infrastructure.

• Defining and architecting our enterprise-level strategic vision and technical roadmap for AI-orchestrated developer workflows at Canva

• Pioneering new AI engineering practices by researching and developing high-value AI methodologies, frameworks, and technologies that go beyond code generation to transform all parts of the Canva SDLC

• Driving paradigm shift in how engineering teams think about and adopt AI tooling, establishing patterns and practices that influence the broader industry

• Keeping Canva at the bleeding edge through deep industry research, experimentation with emerging AI technologies, and strategic evaluation of new paradigms (MCPs, Skills, multi-agent frameworks)

• Architecting cross-platform integration by collaborating across Platform and Product teams to embed AI capabilities throughout Canva's developer ecosystem

• Building technical depth across the organisation by mentoring and developing other engineers, establishing knowledge-sharing practices, and creating clarity in ambiguous technical domains

• Codify vision into reality through comprehensive technical documentation, presentations, and demonstration of novel approaches that inspire and guide the organisation

• Elevating platform capabilities by identifying critical technical gaps and leading initiatives that lift Canva's engineering foundations to enable AI-powered workflows at scale

You're probably a match if

• You have a proven track record of technical vision-setting that influences large engineering organisations and establishes new domains or practices, particularly around AI/ML tooling or developer productivity

• You have deep practical experience building with and evaluating cutting-edge AI tooling for software engineering (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf, etc.)

• You have an expert understanding of the AI landscape, including LLMs, MCPs, Agent Skills frameworks, AI orchestration systems, and ML infrastructure

• You have an exceptional ability to translate ambiguity into clarity by defining technical approaches where best practices don't yet exist

• You have outstanding collaboration and influence skills with demonstrated success aligning multiple teams with competing priorities, building consensus across senior stakeholders, and driving shared outcomes through compelling technical narratives

• You have a strong platform engineering background with the ability to architect and build developer tools and infrastructure that scales to the needs of the organisation

• You have deep experience with CI/CD pipelines, build systems, and developer workflow optimisation at enterprise scale

• You have the ability to balance innovation with pragmatism by translating bleeding-edge AI capabilities into practical, measurable improvements in engineering velocity

• You have demonstrated technical leadership on large-scale platforms and cross-functional initiatives with broad organisational impact

About the Group and Team

Join the DevX (Developer Experience) group at Canva, where our goal is to empower engineers to do their best work. We are creating a new team called AI Developer Tooling Workflows that is dedicated to accelerating Canva's engineering velocity by evolving beyond standalone AI tools into AI tooling paved paths, orchestrated agentic frameworks and embedding intelligent AI capabilities across the entire software development lifecycle.

Our mission is to reduce developer toil and unlock step-change improvements in productivity by providing engineers with AI-powered workflows that are contextually aware, seamlessly integrated, and continuously improving. We envision a future where Canva engineers leverage orchestrated multi-agent systems that understand our codebase, conventions, and context to dramatically accelerate development.

As a Staff Software Engineer for AI Developer Tooling Workflows, you'll be instrumental in defining how AI fundamentally transforms software development at Canva.

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 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.