Business Development Representative (Higher Education - Public Sector)

Location: Austin, Texas, USA; in-office Tuesday–Thursday, with remote or office work available on Mondays and Fridays.

Company

Canva is a visual communication and design platform helping students, educators, universities, and organizations create, collaborate, and communicate.

What you will do

• Collaborate with Sales teams to identify and pursue opportunities within universities, colleges, and academic systems.
• Build pipeline through cold calling, email outreach, social selling, and engagement with faculty, marketing teams, and campus leadership.
• Learn university priorities such as student engagement, digital transformation, and accessibility, and align Canva’s solutions to those needs.
• Partner with Marketing, Product, Customer Success, Account Executives, and Customer Success Managers on Public Sector campaigns and institution-wide adoption.
• Demonstrate Canva use cases for presentations, coursework, branding, internal communications, and other campus needs.
• Use Salesforce, Pocus, Outreach, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, and Gong to manage pipeline and deliver against performance goals.

Requirements

• Recent graduate or early-career professional interested in technology, sales, or startups.
• Strong interest in education, technology, or helping organizations work more creatively and efficiently.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build relationships with new contacts.
• Strong organization, time management, attention to detail, and goal orientation.
• Ability to learn quickly, improve continuously, and meet weekly, monthly, and quarterly targets.

Nice to have

• Experience with cold outreach, internships, campus leadership, or customer-facing work.
• Familiarity with Salesforce or other outreach platforms.

Culture & Benefits

• Hands-on training in sales, business development, and the SaaS industry.
• Clear progression opportunities toward Account Executive and leadership roles.
• Opportunity to contribute to projects impacting students and educators.
• Equity package, health benefits, and a 401(k) retirement plan with company contribution.
• Inclusive parental leave, flexible leave options, and an annual wellbeing and office-support allowance.

Hiring process

• Interviews are conducted virtually.
• Applicants can provide their pronouns and request reasonable adjustments during the interview process.