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Salary: USD 251,000 - 329,000 / annual
Canva is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead video performance strategy across the entire video creation lifecycle. You will own end-to-end optimization from timeline scrubbing and real-time preview through export and rendering, identifying bottlenecks and driving measurable improvements to the editing experience.
Key responsibilities include profiling and optimizing critical paths in Canva's C++ native engine, GLSL/HLSL shaders, and ML-powered effect pipelines to reduce latency and memory footprint. You'll design and build observability systems including internal profiling tools and automated regression suites that capture key performance metrics (FPS, jank, memory usage, thermal behavior) across Web, iOS, and Android platforms.
You will define and own performance metrics that directly reflect user-perceived fluidity and creative flow, ensuring performance remains a first-class product feature. Collaboration across Video Engine and AI teams will be essential as you evolve system architecture for improved parallelism, cache locality, and asynchronous processing. You'll leverage hardware acceleration using platform-specific APIs (Metal, Vulkan, WebGPU) to unlock maximum performance across diverse consumer hardware.
The ideal candidate treats performance as a product feature and has optimized complex, multi-threaded systems. You should think in systems, understanding how frontend, backend, and native engines interact to create seamless user experiences at scale. Strong C++ proficiency is required, with experience in modern systems languages like Rust a plus. You'll need deep understanding of CPU/GPU architectures, memory hierarchies, and SIMD, plus hands-on experience with graphics APIs (OpenGL, Metal, Vulkan).
Fluency in profiling and diagnostics tools (Perf, Instruments, Chrome DevTools, Systrace) is essential. Understanding of multimedia fundamentals including video codecs (H.264/5, VP9, AV1), container formats, and frame-accurate seeking is expected. You should use data to validate impact, analyzing telemetry at scale to identify regressions and measure improvements. Finally, you elevate those around you, influencing peers and partner teams to prioritize performance and long-term quality.
Canva's Video Group is a global, interdisciplinary team of rendering engineers, AI researchers, and product builders. In San Francisco, you'll join a high-impact team building the performant foundation that enables creative ambitions.
