Senior Backend Engineer - (Java) - Teams & Education

Location: Team Engineering

Team: Country Sydney / Australia

About the Role

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design. At Canva's Teams & Education SuperGroup, we're powering SaaS products like Canva for Enterprise, Canva for Education, and Canva Pro that serve millions globally and drive our revenue growth. As a Senior Backend Engineer (Java), you'll lead transformative sharing and permissions features across our flagship design tools, content management, and brand experiences, ensuring seamless collaboration for teams worldwide. You'll propose innovative, future-proof solutions, author design documents, and guide complex implementations while mentoring engineers and fostering Canva's collaborative culture. With deep Java expertise and distributed systems mastery, you'll tackle intricate challenges in our AWS/Kubernetes environment, advocating for resilience and performance that scales to our ambitious 10x growth goals. Your creative problem-solving will shape cross-team initiatives elevating reliability, velocity, and security. We're seeking a technical leader who thrives in Canva's design-focused, innovative environment—passionate about user-centric engineering, excellent communication, and empowering others. Based in Sydney with hybrid flexibility, you'll collaborate with diverse Canvanauts to delight users and achieve our global mission. Interviews are virtual; share your pronouns and any adjustments needed.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead delivery of sharing and permissions features across Canva's design experience, content management, and brand tools
• Propose innovative approaches to future-proof Canva's product decision platforms and business outcomes
• Shape improvements through design documents, design meetings, and stakeholder collaboration
• Advocate for best practices enhancing service performance, resilience, and adaptability
• Design and implement complex system components tackling intricate technical challenges
• Guide major project implementation with task planning, architectural diagrams, and communication
• Mentor engineers in professional development and technical problem-solving
• Drive cross-team initiatives setting higher standards for reliability, velocity, and security
• Collaborate with design and product teams to deliver intuitive, scalable backend solutions
• Contribute to Canva's Teams & Education SuperGroup growth goals for global SaaS products

Required Qualifications

• Extensive experience developing distributed web applications with deep Java expertise
• Proven track record planning and executing complex architectural changes with creative problem-solving
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for collaborating across stakeholders and engineers
• Demonstrated experience mentoring and guiding engineering teams through technical challenges
• Mastery of computer science fundamentals including concurrency, data structures, and distributed systems
• Hands-on experience in large distributed cloud environments (AWS preferred)
• Familiarity with cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes and Terraform

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with large-scale distributed asset management systems
• Background in SaaS products for enterprise, education, or team collaboration
• Proven impact on cross-team initiatives improving reliability, velocity, and security
• Experience designing sharing and permissions features in design or content platforms

Required Skills

• Java (expert level)
• Distributed systems architecture
• Concurrency and multithreading
• Data structures and algorithms
• AWS cloud infrastructure
• Kubernetes orchestration
• Terraform infrastructure as code
• Resiliency patterns (load balancing, throttling, circuit breaking)
• Microservices design
• API design and development
• Technical documentation and design docs
• Mentoring and leadership
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Problem-solving in complex environments
• Communication (written and verbal)
• Agile methodologies
• Performance optimization

Benefits

• Flexible hybrid work model in vibrant Sydney, Australia
• Competitive salary and equity in a high-growth tech company
• Comprehensive health, wellness, and family support programs
• Generous parental leave and flexible work arrangements
• Learning stipend and career development opportunities
• Team offsites, social events, and collaborative culture
• Canva for Work subscription and design tool access
• Relocation support for international talent
• Inclusive environment celebrating diverse backgrounds and pronouns

Canva is an equal opportunity employer.