Staff Software Engineer - Export
Canva is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join its Export team within the Editing Platform group. This team is responsible for transforming user designs into downloadable files, a critical workflow that supports over 50 million downloads weekly. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the technical direction and architecture of Canva's rendering and export systems.
In this role, you will own the technical direction of how Canva renders designs into files, including our Chromium-based export pipeline, and set the architecture that keeps it reliable as both Canva's editor and Chromium itself keep moving. You will be the person the team turns to on the hardest rendering problems: upgrade breakages, rendering race conditions, and production incidents caused by upstream Chromium changes. Additionally, you will decide how we absorb upstream change rather than react to it, which covers monitoring and testing infrastructure that catches Chromium regressions before users do, and designs that survive Chromium's frequent output structure changes. You will also set the direction for PDF accessibility and compliance (PDF/UA, WCAG) across exported files for our Enterprise customers, and make the calls on how deeply we tag, where we draw the line, and what we build versus buy. Leading on export reliability and performance at the scale of over 50 million weekly downloads, spanning format optimisation, distributed systems design, and the failure modes that only show up at that volume, will also be part of your responsibilities. Raising the level of the engineers around you through design review, pairing on gnarly debugging sessions, and the kind of documentation that turns one person's Chromium knowledge into the team's will be expected. You will work across the Editing Platform group and beyond it, so that teams shipping new editor features know their work will hold up when someone hits download.
The ideal candidate will have deep experience with Chromium or another browser rendering engine, and have worked inside it rather than just around it. Comfort with C++ when a problem takes you into a large third-party codebase, and the ability to build a clear picture of code you didn't write, is essential. A background in rendering pipelines, graphics programming, or print production systems is highly desirable. Strong Java backend engineering skills are crucial, as Canva's product is built on this technology. Experience in owning a technical domain end to end, including setting the architecture, making trade-offs, and living with the consequences, is important. The ability to debug layered systems where the problem spans multiple codebases and languages, and to lead others through that kind of investigation, is necessary. Mentoring and raising the level of engineers through design review, pairing, and documentation is expected. Experience with systems where upstream dependencies change frequently, and a view on how to make that sustainable, is beneficial.
Nice-to-have qualifications include knowledge of PDF specifications, experience with PDF generation and post-processing, and experience with accessibility standards in document or file output.
This role offers the opportunity to work on one of Canva's highest-leverage systems, impacting every team that ships something a user needs to download. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will have the chance to shape the evolution of Canva's export systems, ensuring reliability, speed, and flexibility across every format and use case.
Canva fosters a collaborative and inclusive culture, encouraging team members to bring their authentic selves to work. The company offers opportunities for professional growth and development, with a focus on empowering employees to do the best work of their lives.