Senior Research Scientist - Generative AI

Summary

Join Canva's team and contribute to the future of AI-powered design. As a Senior Research Scientist, you will advance foundational models and conduct research with practical, scalable impact. This role blends hands-on model development with collaborative research, from exploring new architectures to guiding product direction. You will work at the intersection of innovation and impact, contributing to Canva's AI research agenda and reaching millions of users globally. You will contribute to research projects, design and run experiments, translate research into production-ready implementations, develop model architectures, collaborate with ML Engineers, stay updated on emerging trends, and share knowledge internally and externally.

Requirements

• Solid expertise in machine learning, particularly in areas like LLMs, vision-language models, generative AI, or multi-modal systems
• A publication record or evidence of research impact in academia or industry
• Experience contributing to research projects from problem formulation through to deployment, with support from more senior team members
• Ability to turn complex theoretical ideas into tangible solutions, and evaluate them rigorously
• A collaborative mindset — you work well with engineers, product teams, and other researchers

Responsibilities

• Contribute to research projects that support the development of foundational models across Canva’s AI domains
• Design and run experiments to test hypotheses, improve model behavior, and assess real-world performance
• Translate theoretical research and academic papers into robust, production-ready implementations with guidance
• Help develop and refine model architectures and training methodologies to improve outcomes
• Collaborate closely with ML Engineers to scale models and integrate them into Canva’s product ecosystem
• Stay up to date with emerging trends, technologies, and open challenges to inform our research direction
• Share your knowledge internally through documentation and cross-team collaborations, and externally through papers or talks where appropriate

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