Principal Frontend Engineer (Based in Australia – Relocation Supported)

Overview

Join the team powering the foundation of Canva’s world‑class user experience.

Where And How You Can Work

Our flagship campus is in Sydney, with additional hubs across ANZ. But you have a choice in where and how you work—we trust our Canvanauts to find the balance that empowers them and their team to achieve their goals.

What You’d Be Doing In This Role

As Canva scales, change continues to be part of our DNA. You’ll lead the technical direction for video technology that powers millions of daily exports, architecting scalable, high‑performance rendering systems and pioneering AI‑powered video features. You’ll work alongside talented engineers, tackling complex problems and pushing the boundaries of browser‑based video creation.

At the moment, this role is focused on

• You’ll architect and lead the technical direction for Canva’s frontend systems, making key design decisions that balance performance, scalability, and user experience.
• You’ll collaborate with senior Principal and Staff Engineers to establish technical standards and best practices, while progressively taking ownership of architectural decisions.
• You’ll solve complex technical challenges across data consumption, bundling, and performance optimisation, applying deep expertise in React and frontend architecture to maximise both technical excellence and business impact.
• You’ll define and communicate a technical vision and roadmap for a future‑proof architecture that supports rapid feature development, maintainability, and cross‑platform code reuse.
• You’ll mentor and guide engineers on architecture‑related projects, sharing your expertise in React, systems design, and large‑scale frontend ecosystems.

You're probably a match if

You’re a technical leader with a deep passion for frontend architecture and a proven track record of designing and implementing large‑scale systems using React, TypeScript, and MobX. You’re someone who thrives on solving complex technical challenges, understands browser runtimes and memory management in detail, and can translate that insight into pragmatic, scalable solutions. You enjoy bringing clarity and structure to complexity, inspiring and guiding others along the journey.

You’ll likely have

• 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.
• Industry connections and open‑source contributions in frontend technologies like React, demonstrating engagement with the broader technical community.

About The Group

The Client Platform group provides the systems, libraries, and frameworks that power Canva. This includes frontend foundations such as mobile and desktop platforms, our Design System, support for offline functionality, React core libraries, and backends for frontends. We enable over 600 frontend engineers to deliver high‑quality features efficiently and consistently. The group plays a central role in evolving our frontend tech stack to meet Canva’s growing needs, supporting our goal of delivering a world‑class, inclusive experience to 1 billion monthly active users.

About The Role

As a Principal Frontend Engineer within Client Platform, you’ll collaborate with senior technical leaders to shape and evolve Canva’s frontend architecture. This is a rare opportunity to influence the foundations of one of the most complex frontend applications in the world, built by hundreds of engineers and used by over 250 million users each month. Our frontend stack must continuously evolve to handle increasing complexity, enabling powerful features while remaining highly performant, reliable, accessible, and efficient. It must work seamlessly across browsers, mobile devices, and desktop applications, all while being maintainable for our growing engineering community.

Location requirement

This role is open to candidates globally; however, successful candidates will be required to relocate to Australia. We’ll support you through the relocation process.

What’s in it for you?

• Equity packages — we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policies supporting all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance supporting wellbeing, social connection, and office setup
• Flexible leave options empowering you to recharge and thrive

Other Stuff To Know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills, and passion, as well as how you enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please share your pronouns and any adjustments you might need during the interview process. We celebrate all kinds of skills and backgrounds — even if you don’t tick every box, we want to hear from you! Interviews are conducted virtually.

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