Senior Backend Engineer, User Platform - Java (Remote across ANZ)

Location: Team Engineering

Team: Country Sydney / Australia

About the Role

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design. At Canva, we're not just building tools—we're empowering 260 million monthly active users to create stunning visuals that bring ideas to life. As a Senior Backend Engineer on the User Platform team, you'll scale the authentication backbone that powers this creative revolution, preparing our systems for 10x growth while delivering world-class experiences for Enterprise and Education customers. You'll collaborate in a tight-knit engineering squad, designing and building high-performance Java microservices that form the User Product—the scalable foundation of Canva's auth pipeline. From crafting reusable building blocks to optimising AWS resources for peak efficiency, your work will directly impact how teams across Canva innovate. Expect constant cross-team partnerships, on-call rotations, and the thrill of shipping features that enhance user management for massive organisations, all while embracing our design-focused culture of bold ideas and user obsession. Our User Platform team thrives on breaking monoliths into future-proof services, prioritising software craftsmanship that drives real user delight. We're passionate about performance, scalability, and the creative magic that happens when engineering meets design. If you're grounded in CS fundamentals, love wrestling complex challenges, and want to shape the platform behind Canva's explosive growth, this is your chance to leave a lasting mark in a collaborative, innovative environment that celebrates diverse backgrounds and big ambitions.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate within a backend-focused engineering team to extend and scale Canva's User Platform microservices
• Design, build, and maintain high-performance systems for user authentication and management
• Develop reusable and scalable building blocks enabling teams across Canva to build on the User Platform
• Partner with stakeholder teams to evaluate requirements, align timelines, and optimise solutions for customer value
• Participate in on-call rotations and contribute to incident response as needed
• Enhance experiences for large Enterprise and Education customers supporting advanced organisational needs
• Break up existing services and build new ones to prepare authentication platform for 10x user growth
• Optimise AWS resources for maximum performance while shipping features for Enterprise and Education users
• Constantly collaborate across Canva teams to connect the dots and drive platform evolution
• Apply software design principles focused on user impact and scalability for 260M+ monthly active users

Required Qualifications

• Experience collaborating effectively with teammates and communicating clearly
• Firmly grounded in computer science and engineering fundamentals, including concurrency, multithreading, data structures, solution design, architecture, and design patterns
• Strong background in designing, building, and operating high-performance, large-scale Java backend systems
• Proven problem-solving mindset to tackle complex challenges
• Experience working with distributed systems and microservices architectures
• Ability to participate in on-call rotations and contribute to incident response
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with authentication and authorisation systems
• Familiarity with SQL databases
• Experience with DynamoDB or similar NoSQL databases
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Previous work in high-scale user management platforms
• Exposure to AWS cloud infrastructure

Required Skills

• Java backend development
• Microservices architecture
• High-performance system design
• Concurrency and multithreading
• Data structures and algorithms
• Distributed systems
• AWS cloud services
• Authentication and authorization
• SQL databases
• NoSQL databases (DynamoDB)
• Solution architecture
• Design patterns
• Problem-solving
• Cross-team collaboration
• Clear communication
• Incident response
• On-call experience
• Agile methodologies

Benefits

• Work from anywhere across ANZ with flexible hybrid/remote options
• Unlimited vacation policy to recharge and maintain work-life balance
• Canva for Teams subscription plus generous product credits
• Learning stipend for conferences, courses, and professional growth
• Health and wellness benefits including gym memberships and mental health support
• Parenthood and family support including generous parental leave
• Stock options and performance bonuses as part of Canva's success
• Inclusive culture with employee resource groups and belonging programs
• Delicious daily lunches, snacks, and team social events (Sydney office)

Canva is an equal opportunity employer.