Engineering Manager - API Platform

Summary

Join Canva's Product Platform Group as an Engineering Manager in API Platform and play a crucial role in developing capabilities that power Canva's hundreds of microservices. Design and implement components used by hundreds of engineers to process billions of messages for millions of users, ensuring reliability, availability, and security. This role focuses on designing and building backend components for scalability, operating and evolving key services within Canva's service mesh, advocating for the team in roadmap planning, uplifting reliability, speed, and security, sharing knowledge through documentation, collaborating with engineers and product partners, and mentoring a team of engineers. The ideal candidate possesses deep experience in backend languages (Java, Python, C++, etc.), familiarity with CI/CD, observability tooling, and security best practices, and strong AWS knowledge. Leadership experience in setting goals, providing feedback, and hiring is essential, along with excellent communication skills. Canva offers a range of benefits, including equity packages, inclusive parental leave, a wellbeing allowance, and flexible leave options.

Requirements

• Have deep, practical experience in Java, Python, C++, or other backend languages
• Feel at home with CI/CD pipelines, observability tooling, and security best practices
• Know AWS inside-out and can guide others through cloud trade-offs
• Champion automation and AI—both in your own workflow and across the team
• Bring solid CS fundamentals and a keen eye for architecture & design patterns
• Have led engineers: setting clear goals, giving feedback, and hiring exceptional talent
• Communicate with clarity—whether you’re writing a design doc or speaking to execs
• A degree is not mandatory but users must demonstrate a very strong command of computer science fundamentals to be successful in the role

Responsibilities

• Design & build backend components that help Canva scale gracefully
• Operate & evolve the key services that make up Canva’s service mesh
• Advocate for the team in roadmap and planning forums, ensuring our voice is heard
• Uplift reliability, speed, and security through team-wide initiatives and post-incident learnings
• Share knowledge by writing clear docs, guidelines, and design briefs
• Collaborate with engineers and product partners to deliver production-ready solutions
• Mentor & grow a team of talented engineers, fostering a safe, inclusive, high-performance culture

Benefits

• 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