Research Lead - Evaluations

Location: Team Engineering

Team: Country London / United Kingdom

About the Role

As Canva grows, so does the impact and opportunity of our AI-powered features that make design accessible to everyone. We’re looking for a Research Lead - Evaluations to coach a team of world-class scientists, build on our foundational model roadmap, and turn academic breakthroughs into delightful, design-focused product experiences. If you thrive in bridging deep research with practical application, love helping others grow, and are passionate about solving hard technical problems in a collaborative, innovative culture—this role in our London Engineering team is for you. In this hands-on leadership position, you’ll lead and grow a high-performing team of research scientists and ML engineers, owning the evaluation strategy with robust frameworks for quality, safety, red-teaming, and benchmarking to ensure enterprise readiness and user delight at scale. You’ll set strategic research direction aligned with Canva’s AI and product goals, guide technical direction for foundational models, and partner cross-functionally with design, engineering, and product teams to embed cutting-edge AI into our platform. Championing both scientific excellence and scalable impact, you’ll represent Canva in the global AI community through publications and talks. You’re a match if you’ve led research teams with a track record of impact, possess expert hands-on knowledge of GANs, Diffusion Models, VAEs, Autoregressive Models, and generative model evaluation, and excel at data-driven methodologies that turn analytics into actionable insights. With strategic thinking, scientific rigour, and the ability to communicate clearly across audiences, you’ll thrive in Canva’s collaborative environment where innovation meets design magic. Join us in redefining how the world experiences design through AI.

Key Responsibilities

• Coach and mentor a high-performing team of research scientists and machine learning engineers
• Own the evaluation strategy: design and run robust frameworks for quality, safety, red-teaming, and competitive benchmarking
• Set research strategy in alignment with Canva’s AI and product goals
• Guide technical direction across foundational model development, experimentation, and evaluation
• Partner cross-functionally with engineering, design, and product teams to embed AI into delightful user experiences
• Represent Canva in the global AI community through publications, talks, or open-source contributions
• Bridge deep research with practical application to advance AI-powered design features
• Cultivate talent and foster a collaborative, innovative research culture
• Ensure scientific excellence and scalable impact across Canva’s platform
• Drive data-driven insights from user analytics to inform model improvements

Required Qualifications

• Have led research or applied science teams, with a strong track record of coaching and impact
• Possess expert knowledge and experience with GANs, Diffusion Models, VAEs, and Autoregressive Models
• Deep, hands-on expertise in training and evaluating generative models (Diffusion, GANs, VAEs, LLMs)
• Excel at creating data-driven evaluation methodologies, turning user analytics into clear, actionable insights
• Strategic thinking and scientific rigour to project direction and problem solving
• Experience in evaluation frameworks including quality, safety, red-teaming, and competitive benchmarking
• Proven ability to partner cross-functionally to translate research into product impact

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience representing research in global AI community through publications, talks, or open-source
• Background in AI for design tools or creative applications
• Hands-on experience with foundational model development and deployment at scale
• Familiarity with Canva's design-first product ecosystem
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field

Required Skills

• Leadership of research/science teams
• GANs expertise
• Diffusion Models expertise
• VAEs expertise
• Autoregressive Models expertise
• Generative model training
• Generative model evaluation
• Evaluation framework design (quality, safety, red-teaming)
• Competitive benchmarking
• Data-driven evaluation methodologies
• User analytics interpretation
• Strategic research planning
• Scientific rigour in problem-solving
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Technical communication to non-technical audiences
• Continuous learning and research trend awareness
• Talent coaching and mentoring
• AI deployment at scale

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, and home office setup
• Flexible leave options to recharge and support personal needs
• Hybrid work model empowering choice between office and remote
• Opportunities to work on cutting-edge AI for design innovation
• Global team collaboration across Sydney, London, and beyond
• Rich culture of magic, connectivity, and fun at Canva

Canva is an equal opportunity employer.