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Canva is seeking a Staff Frontend Engineer to lead the Video Editor team's technical direction. You'll be a hands-on technical leader—still writing code—who guides multiple engineering streams and sets architectural standards for the team.
Key responsibilities include:
- Serving as technical lead for the Video Editor team, advising on technical direction, reviewing design docs, and helping project captains land the right approach
- Leading integration of Canva's new native video rendering engine into the editor, moving away from CSS/JavaScript rendering to unlock features like adjustment layers and masking
- Working with a new data model built specifically for video, replacing the fixed-page model to enable more effects
- Owning projects post-launch: monitoring, rollout, observability, and operational excellence
- Setting engineering standards through code review, mentoring, and modeling best practices
You should have:
- Experience as a technical lead on an engineering team, earning trust through demonstrated judgment
- Hands-on coding as part of your leadership approach
- Ownership of complex, interactive web applications at scale
- Strong TypeScript and React skills with architectural decision-making ability
- Systems thinking: understanding how frontend decisions impact backend and vice versa
- Serious operational ownership: measuring, monitoring rollouts, and ensuring projects are genuinely operational post-launch
Nice-to-have skills include audio engineering, video editing tools experience, real-time collaborative editing (OT/CRDT), graphics programming/WebGL, C++, or design tool familiarity.
The Video Editor team owns the editing experience at Canva—timeline, video-specific features, playback, and video elements. Video is a major use case and market focus; Canva is rebuilding technical foundations. This is an opportunity to shape product direction rather than maintain existing systems.
Canva offers equity packages, inclusive parental leave, annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing and setup, and flexible leave. The role is hybrid based in Sydney with flexibility to work remotely and collaborate on campus when it matters most.
