Senior Engineering Manager (BE) - Developer Workflows

Airops

Airops

Software Engineering, Other Engineering

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Posted on May 26, 2026

Company Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll 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. It’s a thoughtfully designed space with plenty of room to collaborate, focus, and connect.

This role is based in Sydney, and we’re 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.

Job Description

What you’d be doing in this role

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

At the moment, this role is focused on:

  • Leading three Developer Workflows teams and coaching 3 Team Engineering Leads to build a high-performing, inclusive, and psychologically safe engineering culture.
  • Defining and driving the strategy for Developer Workflows across frontend, backend, and platform engineering experiences at Canva.
  • Partnering closely with Product Managers, engineering leaders, and platform teams to improve how engineers build, test, ship, and operate software at scale.
  • Translating developer pain points into impactful improvements across CI/CD, IDE tooling, testing frameworks, developer environments, and platform workflows.
  • Championing developer satisfaction as a key metric and driving initiatives that help engineers move faster with confidence.
  • Supporting hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career development for engineers and technical leaders across the subgroup.
  • Representing Developer Workflows in leadership discussions, planning forums, and company goal reviews.
  • Identifying opportunities for cross-team collaboration and platform standardisation that improve the developer experience across Canva.

You're probably a match if

  • You’ve led engineering teams or technical leaders in developer experience, platform engineering, infrastructure, or tooling environments.
  • You have a high degree of empathy for engineers and care deeply about creating workflows, tools, and environments that help engineers do their best work.
  • You’re passionate about defining what great engineering looks like in modern, fast-moving organisations and helping teams continuously raise the bar.
  • You use metrics, developer feedback, and data-informed decision-making to prioritise work and measure impact.
  • You’re highly collaborative and can align teams, stakeholders, and priorities across complex technical environments.
  • You’re comfortable navigating ambiguity and using feedback, data, and engineering insight to drive meaningful improvements.
  • You have experience working with CI/CD systems, developer platforms, monorepo tooling, IDE ecosystems, or developer environment management (highly regarded).

About the team

Developer Workflows is a subgroup within Canva’s Developer Experience (DevX) group, dedicated to providing a frictionless and optimised development journey for engineers across Canva.

The subgroup is made up of three teams:

  • Web Workflows — focused on frontend tooling, bundlers, TypeScript dependency injection, CI/CD, and monorepo health.
  • Backend Workflows — improving workflows for backend engineers across Java and Python ecosystems through IDE uplift, testing frameworks, CI/CD, and Devbox enablement.
  • Platform Workflows — empowering platform engineers to evolve Canva’s infrastructure platform quickly and safely as business needs change.

Together, the teams are focused on helping engineers build and launch faster while improving reliability, productivity, and developer happiness at scale.

What's in it for you?

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

Here’s a taste of what’s 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 lifeatcanva.com 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.

We celebrate all types of skills and backgrounds at Canva so even if you don’t feel like your skills quite match what’s listed above - we still want to hear from you!

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.