Staff Software Engineer - API Platform

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.

At the moment, this role is focused on:

• Play a leading role in defining the technical roadmap and architecture for API platforms as Canva evolves. This involves helping shape the roadmaps for critical building blocks of Canva’s backend systems.
• Become an authority in the area of API architecture and service communication. You will need to define and evangelise best practices for software architecture and layering, service performance, resiliency patterns and best practice library consumption. You will do this with both coding contributions and effective PR reviews.
• Design and be a hands-on implementer of intricate aspects of the system, showcasing your aptitude for tackling complex technical challenges effectively.
• Propose innovative approaches and solutions to help future-proof Canva's distributed cloud infrastructure. You must engage with others to shape the improvements through writing clear design documents, influencing others' designs and running design meetings.
• Guide the implementation of major projects, assisting in realistic task breakdown and keeping engineers in sync within and across teams using excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Provide guidance and mentorship to other engineers, assisting them in their professional development and helping them navigate technical challenges.
• Have a widespread impact across the organisation by facilitating and orchestrating cross-team initiatives that set a higher standard for reliability, velocity, and security.

You're probably a match if

• Ten-plus (10+) years of commercial experience developing sophisticated distributed web applications on the JVM; experience writing Java (experience with other backend languages such as Scala, Python and Typescript is a plus)
• Experience with planning and executing architectural changes and a creative and conceptual problem-solving approach as opposed to a framework or library focus.
• Strong communication and teamwork skills, both written and verbal.
• Facilitating collaboration across teams and fostering a positive working relationship between stakeholders and engineers. You know how to create a culture of trust, respect, and open communication.
• Experience with guiding and mentoring other engineers, helping unblock technical challenges and being an all-around role model.
• Expert in asynchronous or reactive programming techniques and associated patterns
• Deep knowledge of computer science and engineering fundamentals: concurrency, data structures, and distributed systems. And an understanding of resiliency techniques and patterns – load balancing, throttling, back pressure, circuit breaking, etc.
• Experience working in large distributed cloud environments (ideally AWS)
• A huge plus will be experience with RPC frameworks, like gRPC.
• A strong working knowledge of modern networking protocols such as HTTP/2, protobuf and WebSockets will be highly regarded.

About the team

API Platform is composed of 4 teams—our group’s mission is to provide the tools and libraries to empower Canva’s engineers to reliably scale Canva’s backend services to billions of users. We are responsible for the components that combine to build Canva’s backend services as well as those used to allow those backend services to communicate with each other. We are currently facing numerous exciting challenges as we uplift our platform capabilities, ready for Canva to serve 1 billion monthly active users.

About the Role

This role sits within the API Platform team as part of the Product Platform group within Canva. As a versatile staff software engineer, you will be responsible for helping shape the vision of our platform. Critically, you will have the experience to guide the implementation and turn that vision into a reality.

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.

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.