Staff Software Engineer - Video - Content and Discovery (C++)

TL;DR

Staff Software Engineer - Video - Content and Discovery (C++): Developing and maintaining high-performance C++ services and distributed systems for a global audio and video processing platform with an accent on scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency. Focus on optimizing multimedia processing pipelines, implementing advanced video codecs, and driving engineering excellence in video infrastructure.

Location: Must be based in Sydney, Australia (Hybrid)

Company

Canva is a global design platform redefining how the world experiences design.

What you will do

• Develop and maintain high-performance C++ services, frameworks, and tools for audio and video processing.
• Design and implement distributed systems to ingest, process, store, and deliver multimedia content globally.
• Optimize multimedia processing pipelines for reliability, performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and designers to enable exceptional video editing and playback.
• Build new platform capabilities to support a rapidly growing video and multimedia ecosystem.
• Drive engineering excellence through testing, code reviews, and operational best practices.

Requirements

• Strong commercial experience building scalable, secure, and performant backend systems using C++.
• Deep knowledge of CS fundamentals, including concurrency, multithreading, and memory management.
• Experience designing and operating distributed systems and scalable backend architectures.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms and services in production environments.
• Proficiency with multimedia frameworks and libraries such as FFmpeg and/or GStreamer.
• Experience with modern video codecs (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP9, AV1) and containers (MP4, WebM).
• Must be based in Sydney.

Nice to have

• Contributions to FFmpeg, GStreamer, or other open-source multimedia projects.
• Experience optimizing video playback through adaptive bitrate streaming (DASH, HLS, CMAF).
• Experience tuning encoding pipelines to improve quality and storage efficiency.
• Experience working with Java-based services in large-scale distributed environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Equity packages to share in the company's success.
• Inclusive parental leave policy supporting all parents and carers.
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance for wellbeing, social connection, and office setup.
• Flexible leave options to recharge and support personal needs.
• Hybrid work environment combining remote flexibility with campus collaboration.