Senior Frontend Engineer

Summary

Join Canva's Apps API Platform Group as a Senior Frontend Engineer and play a crucial role in developing and refining the Apps SDK. You will design and implement public APIs, improve app runtime performance, work with Typescript and other languages, collaborate with internal and external teams, and provide technical leadership. The position requires commercial software development experience, ideally with SDK/API experience, and a strong understanding of computer science fundamentals. Canva offers flexible work options, equity packages, inclusive parental leave, a wellbeing allowance, and flexible leave options. The company values diversity and inclusion and conducts virtual interviews.

Requirements

• Commercial experience in a software development environment, ideally with experience in building internal/external SDKs, APIs, libraries, and frameworks
• Firmly grounded computer science and engineering fundamentals including asynchronous programming, data structures, solution design, architecture, and design patterns
• Previous experience in working collaboratively with team members and communicating effectively
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to break large projects down into smaller ones and deliver on them through others
• Passion for performance debugging and benchmarking
• Good written and verbal communication skills

Responsibilities

• Design and implement public APIs that balance extensibility, usability, and long-term maintainability
• Improve app runtime performance to ensure seamless, high-quality integrations
• Primarily working on web frontend with Typescript, but may need to work with other languages and environments
• Work cross-functionally with core Canva teams to expose internal features via external APIs while maintaining architectural integrity
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring other engineers and driving best practices across the team
• Advocate for developer needs, ensuring that Canva’s SDK and APIs align with the expectations of third-party developers
• Facilitate knowledge sharing and effectively advocate for engineering needs to non-technical stakeholders within the group
• Model initiative and ownership in achieving goals, improving processes and solutions

Preferred Qualifications

• Our frontend stack consists of JavaScript, HTML, CSS, React, TypeScript, MobX. Experience in some of these would be valuable but is not required
• Understanding of browser rendering pipeline, event handling, WebWorkers, WebGL/WebGPU would be a bonus, but not required

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