PhD Research Scientist Intern (AI)

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

Company

Canva is a global design platform redefining how the world experiences design through AI-powered experiences.

What you will do

• Perform task-specific parameter pruning of foundational video generative models.
• Implement complementary optimization techniques including DMD and LoRA-based methods.
• Conduct rigorous evaluations of compute cost, latency, and quality trade-offs.
• Collaborate with research, engineering, and product teams to move research findings into production.
• Contribute to the broader research community through academic publications.
• Develop autonomous agentic AI systems capable of reasoning, planning, and tool usage.

Requirements

• Currently completing a PhD, ideally in the third year or later.
• Proven experience in training generative models.
• Ability to design and interpret machine-learning experiments with strong scientific rigour.
• Proficiency in developing research code for data processing, training, and evaluation.
• Must be based in Sydney, Australia.
• Strong technical communication skills for written reports and presentations.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work model providing flexibility between home and on-campus collaboration.
• Hands-on experience with industry-scale projects, real data, and production infrastructure.
• Mentorship and collaboration with leading researchers and engineers.
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge multimodal creation workflows across design, video, and documents.