Senior Backend Engineer Java User Platform

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey gday mabuhay kia ora你好 hallo vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and youre probably keen to find out whats on offer so well get straight to the point. 

Where and how you can work
Our flagship Sydney campus is uniquely Canva - an extension of our Surry Hills neighbourhood. Its a thoughtfully designed space with plenty of room to collaborate focus and connect.

This role is based in Sydney and were looking for someone who calls it home. Our hybrid way of working gives you the flexibility to work remotely and to come together on campus for meaningful in-person collaboration and connection when it matters most. We trust our Canvanauts to choose the balance that empowers them and their team to achieve their goals.

What youd be doing in this role

As Canva scales change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think thats all part of the fun. So this will give you the flavour of the type of things youll be working on when you start but this will likely evolve.

At the moment this role is focused on:

Youll have the opportunity to work on some of Canvas most essential and high-performance backend systems the User Platform.

Our mission is to scale our authentication platform to support 10x the number of users we have today. To achieve this youll:

• Collaborate within a backend-focused engineering team to extend and scale the backbone of Canvas microservice landscape the User Product.
• Design build and maintain high-performance systems for user authentication and management.
• Develop reusable and scalable building blocks that enable teams across Canva to build on top of the User Platform.
• Partner with stakeholder teams to evaluate requirements align timelines and optimise solutions for customer value.
• Participate in on-call rotations and contribute to incident response as needed.
• Enhance the experience for large Enterprise and Education customers supporting their advanced organisational needs.

Youre probably a match if

• You have ex perience collaborating effectively with teammates and communicating clearly.
• Are firmly grounded in computer science and engineering fundamentals including concurrency multithreading data structures solution design architecture and design patterns.
• Have a strong background in designing building and operating high-performance large-scale Java backend systems.
• Bring a problem-solving mindset to complex challenges.

Nice to have:

• Experience with authentication and authorisation systems (a huge plus).
• Familiarity with SQL.
• Experience with DynamoDB.
• Communicate clearly with s trong written and verbal skills.

About the team

In User Platform we break up existing services and build new ones from scratch to prepare Canvas authentication platform for the future. We care about software design and its impact on the user. We constantly aim to get the most performance out of AWS resources and along the way we ship new features to improve the user experience for Enterprise and Education users.

About the role

As a senior backend engineer you will be collaborating to build up and scale the backbone of Canvas User Management: the User Product. The User Product team plays an essential role in keeping our auth pipeline extendable and scalable for our 260 million monthly active users.

You will be involved in designing building and maintaining new features to improve and extend the experience for Pro and Enterprise teams and organisations by providing world-class authentication and user management experiences. This role entails constant collaboration with other teams across Canva giving you a lot of exposure to what other teams are working on and giving you the opportunity to connect the dots.

Whats in it for you

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but youll experience lots of moments of magic connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva too. We also offer a stack of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.

Heres a taste of whats on offer:

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing social connection office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good take time to recharge and supports you personally

Check out for more info.

Other stuff to know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience skills and passion as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process. 

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually. 

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time