Engineering Manager (BE) - Permissions and Capabilities (Remote ANZ)

Location: Team Engineering

Team: Country Sydney / Australia

About the Role

At Canva, our User Platform forms the foundational backbone for user identity, access, and capabilities across our global design ecosystem. The Permissions & Capabilities team plays a pivotal role in enabling millions of users—from classrooms to enterprises—to collaborate securely and at scale. As Engineering Manager (BE) - Permissions and Capabilities (Remote ANZ), you'll lead a talented group of engineers scaling authentication, authorization, and platform-wide enforcement services. Partnering with product, design, and engineering leaders, you'll tackle complex challenges to deliver innovative infrastructure that powers Canva's growth while upholding our design-focused, collaborative culture. You'll coach and mentor your team with psychological safety at its core, scaling permissions platforms, collaborating across supergroups for production-ready services, and driving initiatives in performance, reliability, and developer experience. Owning planning, delivery, and growth cycles, you'll balance engineering excellence with the fast pace of a product-led company, contributing to systems that impact millions daily. This hybrid role based in Sydney/Australia offers remote flexibility for ANZ, immersing you in Canva's vibrant engineering community. You're a strong match if you've led high-performing teams, bring deep Java backend expertise, and have built complex permissioning systems. A clear communicator who thrives on developing others, you'll excel in our innovative environment where design meets technology. Join us to redefine how the world experiences design, with equity, inclusive leave, wellbeing allowances, and endless growth opportunities. Check lifeatcanva.com for more on our culture of connection, impact, and fun.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and mentor a high-performing backend engineering team focused on permissions and capabilities
• Scale the platform underpinning user permissions, authentication, and capabilities across all of Canva
• Collaborate with supergroups, product, and design leaders to deliver secure, reliable production services
• Contribute to the design and evolution of systems impacting millions of daily users
• Drive platform-wide initiatives improving performance, reliability, and developer experience
• Own team planning cadences, delivery rituals, and growth & impact cycles
• Foster psychological safety and engineering excellence in a collaborative culture
• Partner cross-functionally to solve complex technical challenges at global scale
• Balance fast-paced delivery with sustainable engineering practices
• Champion clean architecture and monolith decomposition efforts
• Ensure services enable safe, secure collaboration for Canva's diverse user base

Required Qualifications

• Experience leading high-performing backend engineering teams with a focus on psychological safety and culture building
• Deep expertise in designing scalable, performant Java-based backend systems
• Proven track record building or working with complex permissioning systems, authentication, and access control infrastructure
• Strong experience in backend engineering management, including planning cadences, delivery rituals, and team growth cycles
• Ability to collaborate effectively across product, design, and engineering teams in a fast-paced, product-led environment
• Demonstrated success scaling platform services that impact millions of users
• Experience driving platform-wide initiatives focused on performance, reliability, and developer experience
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in monolith decomposition and clean architecture migrations
• Familiarity with identity management systems and global collaboration platforms
• Previous leadership in user platform or foundational infrastructure teams
• Background in enterprise-scale permissioning for diverse user bases (classrooms to enterprises)
• Experience mentoring engineers to achieve their best career work
• Knowledge of Canva's design-first product ecosystem

Required Skills

• Backend engineering leadership
• Java systems design and scalability
• Permissioning and access control systems
• Authentication and authorization expertise
• Team coaching and mentoring
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Performance optimization
• Reliability engineering
• Developer experience focus
• Agile delivery in product-led environments
• Psychological safety culture building
• Monolith decomposition
• Clean architecture principles
• Platform scaling at global user scale
• Clear technical communication
• Stakeholder partnership

Benefits

• Equity packages to share in Canva's success
• Inclusive parental leave policy supporting all parents and carers
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing and social connection
• Flexible leave options for recharging or making an impact
• Hybrid work flexibility with remote ANZ options from Sydney/Australia base
• Opportunities for professional growth in a design-forward, innovative culture
• Connection and fun alongside meaningful, high-impact work
• Access to lifeatcanva.com for full perks and community insights

Canva is an equal opportunity employer.