Senior Data Scientist - Design Experience Growth

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 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.

In this role, you'll be the embedded data science partner for the Design Experience Growth team — working across a portfolio of experiments and product initiatives that shape how millions of people discover and adopt Canva's core design features.

You'll partner closely with your Product Manager, Designer, and Engineering team to make sure experiments are set up right — from ensuring event tracking is in place before launch, through to owning the end-to-end analysis once results are in. The team runs a high cadence of experiments, so you'll need to be someone who can move quickly, spot signal in noisy data, and communicate findings clearly.

Beyond experiments, you'll act as a key strategic partner identifying new key product growth initiatives — including in-editor onboarding, different document type funnel optimisations, meaningful design actions for different features, etc — each with milestone-based analysis needs across multiple releases.

This isn't a passive support role. You'll be expected to proactively identify what the team needs to know, flag risks early, and go deep when the situation calls for it.

At the moment, this role is focused on

This role will rely on your ability to think strategically about how data can unlock value from existing product features, while also rolling up your sleeves to deliver rigorous, timely analysis. Specific examples of responsibilities are outlined below:

• Experiment Support: Partner with product and engineering to ensure experiments are instrumented correctly before launch, then own the end-to-end analysis — from reading results to surfacing clear recommendations for what to do next.

• Feature Analysis: Analyse how users discover, adopt, and engage with Design Experience features — building a clear picture of where users get value and where they drop off, to inform both product iteration and growth strategy.

• Opportunity Identification: Proactively identify where data can reveal unmet user needs or underutilised product capabilities. Go beyond answering questions to framing the right ones.

• Funnel & Engagement Analysis: Analyse how users discover, adopt, and retain across core design features — identifying friction points and opportunities to improve the experience at scale.

• Stakeholder Partnership: Act as a trusted data partner to product managers and engineers across the Design Experience team, translating analytical findings into clear product direction.

You're probably a match if

• You have advanced SQL competency: expert-level skills in SQL, with experience in data warehousing solutions like Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery.

• You have working knowledge of using AI: while not an expert, you understand how to use AI to move faster, gather insights more quickly and consider agentic workflows for streamlining the user experience.

• You have strong stakeholder management: excellent communication skills with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts and collaborate with non-technical stakeholders effectively.

• You have worked in a tech company before and are familiar with the way a tech company operates and some of the concepts particular to our industry (e.g. growth accounting, product funnels, designing analytic events, etc.)

• You have experience with R or Python, and have dealt with large datasets before.

• You have subscription data expertise preferably: familiarity with subscription-based business models and collaborative product data sets.

About the team

The Design Experience Growth team sits within Canva's Design Experience Supergroup - the group responsible for Canva's core visual suite, including documents, presentations, and whiteboards.

Our mission is to help more users discover, activate, and get lasting value from the products they use day-to-day. We work across the full growth lifecycle — from the moment a user first encounters a feature, through to the habits that make Canva an indispensable part of how they work. Our North Star is growing monthly active users across the Visual Suite, and we pursue that through six growth pillars: discovery, activation, engagement, retention, collaboration, and cross-product usage.

Data is central to how we work. We run a high cadence of experiments, build analytical frameworks to understand what drives retention, and partner closely with product and design to translate insights into better experiences. In a team where decisions are grounded in evidence, you'll have real influence over what gets prioritised and why.

This is a relatively new and growing function - which means there's significant opportunity to shape how data science works within Design Experience, and to build something that scales with the team.

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 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.