Principal Frontend Engineer - Client Platform (Remote across ANZ)

Location: Team Engineering

Team: Country Sydney / Australia

About the Role

Join the Client Platform team at Canva, powering the foundation of our world-class user experience for 250 million monthly active users. As a Principal Frontend Engineer, you'll lead the technical direction of our frontend systems, architecting scalable solutions that balance performance, reliability, and creativity. Collaborate with senior leaders to evolve our React-based stack, enabling 600+ engineers to deliver innovative design features across web, mobile, and desktop. This is your chance to shape the future of browser-based creativity at a design-first company that's redefining visual communication. In this role, you'll tackle complex challenges in data consumption, bundling, and optimisation, pioneering a future-proof architecture that supports rapid iteration and cross-platform reuse. You'll mentor talented Canvanauts, establish best practices, and communicate a compelling technical vision that drives business impact. Thriving in our collaborative, innovative culture means bringing clarity to complexity, inspiring teams, and celebrating diverse skills and backgrounds. At Canva, our engineering DNA embraces change and scale. You'll work remotely across ANZ with flexible hybrid options, enjoying equity, inclusive leave, wellbeing allowances, and a fun, connected vibe. If you have deep expertise in React, TypeScript, MobX, and large-scale frontend ecosystems—plus a passion for user-centric design—we want to hear from you, even if you don't tick every box.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect and lead the technical direction for Canva’s frontend systems, balancing performance, scalability, and user experience
• Collaborate with senior Principal and Staff Engineers to establish technical standards and best practices
• Progressively take ownership of key architectural decisions for Client Platform foundations
• Solve complex technical challenges across data consumption, bundling, and performance optimisation
• Define and communicate a technical vision and roadmap supporting rapid feature development and maintainability
• Maximise technical excellence and business impact through deep React and frontend architecture expertise
• Mentor and guide engineers on architecture-related projects and large-scale frontend ecosystems
• Evolve Canva’s frontend stack to handle increasing complexity across browsers, mobile, and desktop
• Enable 600+ frontend engineers to deliver high-quality, consistent features efficiently
• Pioneer scalable systems that power world-class, inclusive experiences for 1 billion monthly active users

Required Qualifications

• Extensive web frontend experience with a proven record of building sustainable, scalable architectures
• Deep expertise in React, JavaScript runtimes, and React Native, with hands-on experience building large-scale systems
• Strong systems architecture and technical leadership skills, ideally in environments supporting hundreds of engineers
• Proven track record of designing and implementing large-scale systems using React, TypeScript, and MobX
• Experience solving complex technical challenges in data consumption, bundling, and performance optimisation
• Demonstrated ability to define technical vision and roadmaps for future-proof frontend architectures
• Hands-on experience with browser runtimes, memory management, and cross-platform code reuse

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry connections and open-source contributions in frontend technologies like React
• Experience mentoring and guiding engineering teams on architecture-related projects
• Background working in high-scale environments supporting 250M+ monthly active users
• Familiarity with design systems, offline functionality, and backends for frontends
• Proven leadership in evolving frontend tech stacks for growing engineering organisations

Required Skills

• React
• TypeScript
• MobX
• JavaScript runtimes
• React Native
• Frontend architecture
• Systems design
• Performance optimisation
• Browser runtimes
• Memory management
• Technical leadership
• Mentoring
• Cross-platform development
• Design systems
• Scalable architectures
• Roadmap planning
• Collaboration
• Problem-solving

Benefits

• Equity packages to share in Canva's success
• Inclusive parental leave policies supporting all parents and carers
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing, social connection, and office setup
• Flexible leave options to recharge and thrive
• Hybrid work model with choice in where and how you work across ANZ
• Collaborative culture with moments of magic, connection, and fun
• Virtual interview process with adjustments available
• Opportunities to shape foundations of a world-class design platform

Canva is an equal opportunity employer.