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Engineering Director - Design Experience

Canva

Canva

Design
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Posted on Friday, May 26, 2023
Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.
Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora,你好, hallo, vítejte!
Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.
Where and how you can work
Our flagship campus is in Sydney. We also have a campus in Melbourne and co-working spaces in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. But you have choice in where and how you work. That means if you want to do your thing in the office (if you're near one), at home or a bit of both, it's up to you.
What you’d be doing in this role
As Canva scales change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think that's all part of the fun. So this will give you the flavour of the type of things you'll be working on when you start, but this will likely evolve.
At the moment this role is focused on:
As the Group Engineering Lead, you will represent Engineering in the leadership team for one of our Groups within Design Experience. This org is home to majority of our products in our visual worksuite including Video, Docs, Whiteboards, Presentations and Photo Editing. This will involve working collaboratively with Product and Design leads, as well as other product engineering groups to ensure the delivery of engineering projects from the product roadmap.
The technical strategies you develop and implement will lead to solving problems of huge impact across the business and our millions of users. Your roadmap will encompass innovative "big bets" that will deliver step-change growth for Canva. It will be your responsibility to set the technical strategy and oversee and deliver on highly complex, green-field projects which venture into new domains for the business.

What you'll do

  • Drive the technical roadmap across one of our key product groups and deploying resources effectively
  • Collaborate with Canva engineers, in both systems and data, to scope and solve complex problems that are highly impactful across Canva
  • People manager for 7 Engineering Managers and a wider group of 60 engineers across frontend, backend, mobile and machine learning
  • Create impactful and highly engaged teams of world-class engineers who are building for billions of users.
  • Nurture the progression of current members within the team, creating a team for the present and future needs of Canva.
  • Foster a culture of communication, bridging the communication gap between teams, groups, and company leadership.
  • Coordinating and communicating across various specialities and parts of the business to understand the impact and feasibility of strategic goals within the group.
  • Drive planning and refinement of seasonal goals, ensuring there is alignment between the company, group, and teams.
  • Drive delivery of large, cross-team, and cross-group initiatives and projects from ideation to completion.

What you bring

  • Demonstrated success in managing multiple successful teams (ideally across different engineering specialities), through managing managers.
  • Frontend web development experience
  • Invested in working with engineers on growth and development opportunities to help further their skills and grow into new roles, with an ability to deliver relevant and timely feedback (positive & constructive) to help them continuously improve and learn.
  • Previous experience as a Software Engineer - and still in tune with software engineering fundamentals and first principles.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills; with the ability to work with a diverse range of Canvanauts from different backgrounds, with different expertise, and with different professional and personal needs.
  • Experience making careful engineering tradeoffs, particularly around "Build vs Buy", evaluating potential third-party systems to partner with, and managing and working with vendors to meet Canva's business needs.
  • Be capable of leading by example - promoting Canva’s values, no-blame mentality, and engineering values.
What's in it for you?
Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too. We also offer a stack of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.
Here's a taste of what's on offer:
• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally
Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.
Other stuff to know
We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.
Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.