Senior Backend Engineer

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:

• Build and evolve core backend frameworks, shared services, and developer APIs that accelerate product development.
• Design and deliver scalable systems that are easy to use, maintain, and extend.
• Partner with product teams to co-design abstractions that make feature delivery faster and safer.
• Contribute to service patterns, conventions, and tooling that raise engineering standards across Canva.
• Collaborate across Platform and Product teams to improve observability, rollout processes, and developer workflows.
• Mentor engineers and advocate for a culture of simplicity, reliability, and innovation.

You're probably a match if

• 6+ years of experience building scalable backend systems in modern cloud environments.
• Proficiency in Java or other JVM-based languages (Kotlin, Scala, etc.).
• Strong understanding of API design, modular architecture, and developer experience principles.
• Experience with service frameworks, deployment pipelines, and shared libraries.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred).
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills; you thrive in cross-functional teams.
• Strong grasp of data structures and algorithms, with an ability to reason about complexity and scalability in distributed systems.

About The Supergroup

The Product Platform Supergroup (SG) builds Canva’s shared product foundations across the Client Platform, Application Platform, and Product Insights Enablement (PIE), enabling teams to ship consistent, fast, and reliable experiences at global scale.

The Product Platform SG focuses on empowering engineers by creating shared backend and frontend frameworks, APIs, and developer tools that simplify product delivery and improve consistency across the Canva ecosystem.

About the Role

As a Senior Backend Engineer at Product Platform SG, you’ll design and implement scalable shared services, internal apps and platforms that make building at Canva faster and more enjoyable. You’ll collaborate with other platform and product teams to improve architecture patterns, reliability, and developer productivity. Your work will directly shape how Canva engineers design, deploy, and scale features across millions of users.

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.