Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Summary

Join Canva's AI Group as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer and help redefine how people interact with the platform. Build a flexible and scalable conversational AI platform, fine-tune LLMs, and contribute to platform engineering. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor other engineers, and take ideas from prototype to production. This role is deeply hands-on, requiring production code writing (including Java Backend) and solving complex engineering problems. The position offers remote-friendly work within Australia or New Zealand, with flexibility in work location and setup. Canva is committed to creating a natural and powerful conversational experience for its users, and this role is vital to achieving that goal.

Requirements

• You bring a strong bias for action and a product-minded approach to engineering
• You love getting hands-on, working side-by-side with software engineers, writing production code (including Java Backend), and solving complex engineering problems
• You have deep experience building and deploying ML-powered products, particularly in conversational AI
• You enjoy influencing roadmap decisions and thrive in ambiguous environments
• You’re passionate about keeping up with the rapidly evolving AI space and proactively experiment with emerging techniques

Responsibilities

• Building a truly flexible and scalable conversational AI platform, designed to serve diverse use cases without custom implementations
• Fine-tuning and evaluating LLM-based models to improve performance, efficiency, and user experience
• Contributing to platform engineering across both ML and backend systems—this is a highly hands-on role
• Exploring integrations with industry-standard tools and best practices like MCP and A2A
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to define and deliver impactful AI features
• Mentoring other Machine Learning Engineers and lifting engineering quality and excellence

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