Senior Software Engineer (Developer Tooling) - Python/Java

Location: Based in Sydney, Australia, with a hybrid work arrangement and regular in-person collaboration on campus.

Company

Canva develops a collaborative design platform and supporting technology infrastructure used to help people create and share visual content.

What you will do

• Design, document, implement, test, roll out, and operate complex backend developer experience and infrastructure projects.
• Build self-service platforms, services, CLIs, automation, and diagnostic tools that reduce repetitive work and platform-team dependency.
• Improve development workflows for Python and Java engineers across local and remote environments, IDEs, dependency management, builds, testing, CI/CD, and releases.
• Develop monitoring, logging, telemetry, alerting, and deployment-safety capabilities that proactively surface issues.
• Partner with backend, platform, and infrastructure teams to translate developer needs and business goals into scalable solutions.
• Share knowledge through documentation, technical talks, and mentorship of junior engineers.

Requirements

• Strong background in platform engineering, developer experience, or backend software engineering, with substantial hands-on programming in Python and/or Java.
• Experience building and operating production backend systems, developer tooling, or internal platforms at scale, including support for engineering organizations of 1,000 or more engineers.
• Strong experience with AWS or GCP and thorough production Kubernetes experience.
• Experience building and maintaining large-scale CI/CD pipelines with Buildkite, Jenkins, GitLab CI, or similar tools.
• Experience with Bazel, Gradle, or similar monorepo build tools, plus modern Python or JVM development workflows.
• Experience with monitoring, logging, telemetry, alerting, and Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, or similar tools.

Nice to have

• Production product development experience in Python or Java.
• Experience with release automation, deployment safety, IDE integrations, or language ecosystem stewardship.
• Experience leading large-scale ecosystem migrations, tooling transformations, build-performance optimization, or test infrastructure initiatives.
• Contributions to open-source infrastructure or developer tools.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work with flexibility to balance remote work and campus collaboration.
• Equity packages aligned with company success.
• Inclusive parental leave for all parents and carers.
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing, social connection, and office setup.
• Flexible leave options and virtual interviews.

Hiring process

• Interviews are conducted virtually.
• The process includes interactive, real-time challenges reflecting the role; some interviews may involve solving a problem with an AI tool.