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Canva is seeking a Staff Frontend Engineer to lead the Video Editor team's technical direction. This is a hands-on technical leadership role where you'll remain deeply involved in coding while guiding architectural decisions and mentoring engineers.
Key responsibilities include:
- Serving as technical lead for the Video Editor team, advising on technical direction and reviewing design documents
- Integrating Canva's new native video rendering engine into the editor, moving away from CSS/JavaScript rendering to unlock capabilities like adjustment layers and masking
- Working with a new data model built specifically for video, replacing the fixed-page model to enable more effects and flexibility
- Owning projects through launch, including monitoring, rollout, observability, and operational excellence
- Setting engineering standards through code review, mentoring, and establishing best practices
- Starting with the Audio Studio team, then expanding across the wider Video Editor group
You should have:
- Experience as a technical lead on an engineering team, earning trust through demonstrated expertise
- Strong hands-on coding skills in TypeScript and React with ability to make architectural decisions that scale
- Track record owning complex, interactive web applications used by large audiences
- Systems thinking—understanding how frontend decisions impact backend and vice versa
- Commitment to operational ownership: measuring, monitoring rollouts, and ensuring post-launch success
Nice-to-have skills include audio engineering, video editing experience, real-time collaborative editing (OT/CRDT), graphics programming, WebGL, C++, or design tool experience.
The Video Editor team owns the editing experience at Canva, including timeline, video-specific features, playback surfaces, and video elements. Video is a major use case for Canva's community, and the company is rebuilding technical foundations to capitalize on the market shift toward video-first content. This is an opportunity to shape product direction during a pivotal moment rather than maintain an existing product.
Canva offers equity packages, inclusive parental leave, annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing and setup, and flexible leave options. The role is based in Sydney with hybrid flexibility to work remotely and collaborate on campus as needed.
