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Canva is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to own and evolve the core API platform infrastructure that enables engineering teams across the organization to communicate reliably and efficiently. This is a high-impact technical leadership role focused on building the foundational systems that the entire backend engineering organization depends on.
Key Responsibilities:
- Design and build core infrastructure connecting services across Canva's backend, including API gateways, RPC systems, and service mesh components
- Lead a major migration initiative for how backend services communicate, collaborating closely with partner engineering teams and leadership
- Expand platform support for additional languages and frameworks to enable more teams to build natively
- Own reliability, performance, and correctness of systems in the critical path for the entire engineering organization
- Mentor engineers on the team and raise the technical bar across the platform group
- Drive technical direction across teams that don't report to you, communicating clearly to both engineers and consuming teams
You'll work on high-traffic, large-scale systems where reliability and correctness are paramount. The role requires thinking in trade-offs rather than quick fixes, and a genuine ownership mindset around outcomes that make everyone else's job easier.
Canva is a design platform company headquartered in Sydney with offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. The company offers flexible work arrangements and is open to remote work within Australia for this role.
Requirements:
- Proven experience building and operating infrastructure that other engineering teams depend on, ideally in API gateway, RPC, or service mesh space at high traffic and large scale
- Demonstrated comfort owning systems where reliability and correctness are critical
- Ability to drive technical direction across teams without direct authority, with clear communication to engineers and consuming teams
- Years of experience owning large-scale, high-transaction production systems in a commercial environment
- Experience working across multiple programming languages
- Genuine ownership mindset and motivation for platform work that enables other teams
