Senior Backend Engineer - Java - Product Platform

Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; hybrid work with regular collaboration on the Melbourne campus

Company

Canva is a design platform building shared product foundations that enable consistent, fast, and reliable experiences at global scale.

What you will do

• Build and evolve core backend frameworks, shared services, internal applications, and developer APIs.
• Design and deliver scalable systems that are maintainable, extensible, and easy to use.
• Partner with product teams to create abstractions that make feature delivery faster and safer.
• Define service patterns, conventions, and tooling that improve engineering standards.
• Improve observability, rollout processes, deployment workflows, and developer productivity.
• Mentor engineers and promote simplicity, reliability, and innovation.

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience building scalable backend systems in modern cloud environments.
• Proficiency in Java or another JVM-based language such as Kotlin or Scala.
• Strong understanding of API design, modular architecture, and developer experience principles.
• Experience with service frameworks, deployment pipelines, and shared libraries.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, preferably AWS.
• Strong data structures and algorithms knowledge, with the ability to reason about complexity and scalability in distributed systems.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work with flexibility to work remotely and collaborate in person on campus.
• Equity packages.
• Inclusive parental leave for parents and carers.
• Annual wellbeing and social connection allowance that can also support office setup.
• Flexible leave options.
• Virtual interviews.