Machine Learning Engineering Manager - MLOps/AI Platform (m/f/x)

Location: Team Engineering

Team: Country London / United Kingdom

About the Role

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design at Canva! As Machine Learning Engineering Manager - MLOps/AI Platform (m/f/x), you'll lead a team of 6+ engineers in our Engineering team, based in our buzzing London campus in Shoreditch, UK. Our hybrid model empowers you to balance office collaboration in leafy Hoxton Square with flexible remote work, all while supporting Canva's global AI innovation from our European HQ. You'll partner with AI research leadership to build platform capabilities that accelerate cutting-edge initiatives like Project Celestial, bridging research experimentation to production-scale design magic. In this role, you'll own large cross-team projects across inference, evaluation, datasets, and training, ensuring seamless ML lifecycles for researchers worldwide. Coach your team with practical feedback, drive development rituals, and collaborate with Product Managers to shape roadmaps that align with Canva's innovative, design-focused culture. Champion knowledge sharing, advocate for engineering needs, and handle hiring to scale our AI Platform Group – the foundation powering Canva Original Research & Exploration (CORE) and beyond. You're a fit if you bring proven technical leadership in ML platforms, hands-on experience with our stack (Python, Pytorch, Ray/Anyscale, AWS, Kubernetes, etc.), and a passion for empowering engineers to create business value. Thrive in ambiguity, context-switch between urgent support and strategic development, and excel in EU/AU timezones with first-principles thinking. At Canva, we celebrate bold decisions that solve unique design challenges, fostering a collaborative, continuous-learning environment where your impact scales globally.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with AI research leadership to understand roadmaps and proactively identify platform capabilities needed for upcoming initiatives
• Coordinate with platform teams (Inference, Evaluation, Dataset & Training) to ensure seamless researcher experience across the ML lifecycle
• Own and drive delivery of large, cross-team, cross-group initiatives and projects from ideation to completion with autonomy
• Coach a team of 6+ engineers through regular feedback and help them achieve personal growth goals
• Own the team's development methodology including sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives
• Collaborate with Product Managers to understand and contribute to the roadmap
• Plan goals and define success metrics aligning company, group, and team objectives
• Champion knowledge sharing and communication across engineering while advocating for ML needs to stakeholders
• Run hiring and resourcing to execute the platform roadmap
• Balance reactive researcher support with proactive platform development in a fast-scaling environment

Required Qualifications

• History of success in technical people leadership and mentorship of engineers
• Experience in platform engineering, designing and building complex, distributed systems involving Machine Learning
• Experience working with tech stack: Python, Pytorch, Ray/Anyscale, AWS, Kubernetes, Bazel, vLLM, Weights & Biases, Argo Workflows, Terraform
• Proven ability to work effectively across timezones (particularly EU/AU coordination) with excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated expertise in owning and driving large, cross-team initiatives from ideation to completion
• Strong track record in coaching engineering teams and fostering personal growth
• Experience in hiring and resourcing for engineering roadmaps

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting AI research teams in productionizing ML workflows
• Background in MLOps platforms for inference, evaluation, datasets, and training
• Familiarity with Canva's AI initiatives or similar design-focused AI applications
• Proven first principles thinking in solving unique, large-scale problems
• Experience collaborating with product managers on ML platform roadmaps

Required Skills

• Technical leadership in ML engineering
• People management and coaching
• Platform engineering for ML systems
• Distributed systems design
• Python programming
• Pytorch and ML frameworks
• Ray/Anyscale for distributed computing
• AWS cloud infrastructure
• Kubernetes orchestration
• Bazel build systems
• vLLM for inference
• Weights & Biases for experiment tracking
• Argo Workflows for orchestration
• Terraform for IaC
• Cross-timezone collaboration (EU/AU)
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• First principles problem-solving
• Stakeholder advocacy and roadmap planning

Benefits

• Equity packages to share in Canva's success
• Inclusive parental leave policy supporting all parents and carers
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing, social connection, office setup, and more
• Flexible leave options to recharge and support personal needs
• Hybrid work model at our vibrant London campus in Shoreditch
• Delicious home-cooked meals from our Head Chef
• Varied workspaces for team collaboration and focused work
• Opportunities to work on cutting-edge AI that powers design innovation

Canva is an equal opportunity employer.