Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Integrations & Solutions Group (AU remote)

About the team

We aim to build the world’s richest Ecosystem of apps for visual design and communications that supercharge Canva’s ability to meet the diverse needs of a billion users and drive Canva’s MAU growth.

With the proliferation of innovations in generative AI and as large organizations have increasingly complex workflows to manage their designs, Canva is well poised to become the platform that simplifies access and discovery of services related to visual design. We are already working with hundreds of developers to enable access to these exciting products with our Apps SDK and Canva public REST API!

As one of the groups in Ecosystem, the Integrations and Solutions Group builds Canva's AI integration layer — the infrastructure that connects Canva's design capabilities to the world's leading AI assistants. Our teams own the MCP platform, AI-optimised tools and APIs, evaluation frameworks, and the agent architecture that powers millions of AI-driven design interactions. We work directly with partners like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, and we're in the middle of a strategic shift from protocol-first integrations toward intelligent, Canva-hosted design agents.

As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer, you'll play a critical role in defining how AI platforms experience Canva — driving the technical standards, evaluation frameworks, and architectural decisions that ensure our integrations are reliable, measurable, and evolving with a rapidly changing ecosystem.

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:

• Drive the design and evolution of AI-ready tools and APIs that enable LLM platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and others) to reliably interact with Canva's design capabilities — defining the patterns and standards that other teams adopt for tool descriptions, payload structures, and intent-based interfaces. Pioneer agent-to-agent communication approaches.

• Own and evolve evaluation frameworks that systematically measure tool-use accuracy across platforms — defining what "good" looks like for proxy-based fast evals and real-client production evals, and ensuring these frameworks scale as we add platforms and capabilities.

• Shape Canva's agent architecture — making strategic technical decisions about where intelligence should live (in external LLMs vs Canva-hosted agents), building the orchestration layers that allow third-party providers to invoke Canva's design tools at scale, and driving automation of complex workflows like marketing campaigns.

• Define and build observability systems that give multiple teams visibility into how AI assistants consume Canva's tools in production — identifying failure patterns, setting quality benchmarks, and closing the loop between production data and continuous improvement.

• Work across team and platform boundaries — proactively identifying problems not yet defined, understanding behavioural quirks across LLM platforms, and driving solutions that span the AI Integrations, API Capabilities, and Workflow Integrations teams.

• Influence integration strategy with AI partners and internal teams — contributing to technical direction with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, and shaping how Canva's broader engineering organisation builds for AI consumption.

You're probably a match if

• You've shipped LLM-powered systems into production and can quantify your impact — things like improving tool-call accuracy from X% to Y%, reducing agent error rates, cutting latency by Z%, or measurably improving user outcomes through better AI integration. We care about results, not just launches.

• You proactively find and solve problems others haven't defined yet — you've identified gaps in how LLMs consume tools or APIs, scoped the problem across teams, and driven the fix without waiting for someone to hand you a brief.

• You've built or owned evaluation pipelines end-to-end — designing metrics, building benchmarking infrastructure, and using data to make architectural decisions about AI integrations at scale.

• You set technical standards that others follow — whether that's tool design patterns, API contracts for AI agents, documentation quality, or observability practices. Your work becomes the reference point.

• You can connect external ecosystem changes to internal strategy — when a new LLM capability drops or a partner shifts their architecture, you can quickly assess the implications for Canva and re-prioritise accordingly.

• You're proficient in Python and familiar with ML frameworks, and equally comfortable working with TypeScript/Node.js and cloud infrastructure (Cloudflare Workers, AWS, or similar).

• You thrive in cross-team, partner-facing work — influencing engineering, product, and external AI platform teams to shape integration strategy. You're comfortable operating across team boundaries without formal authority.

• You're energised by ambiguity and pace — the AI ecosystem is evolving rapidly, and you bring clarity and momentum rather than waiting for direction.

Don't tick all the boxes? Don't worry about that - nobody does!

We’d still love to hear from you! At Canva, we know that great engineers come from a variety of backgrounds, and we value passion, curiosity, and a willingness to learn just as much as specific experience. If you're excited about this role but don’t tick every box, we encourage you to apply, you might a great fit in ways you didn’t expect!

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 stack 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.

All interviews are conducted virtually

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 campus is in Sydney, with a second campus in Melbourne and co-working spaces in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, and Auckland, NZ. You have flexibility in how and where you work — whether that's from one of our spaces, from home, or a mix of both. This role is remote-friendly within Australia, so you can choose the setup that empowers you and your team to do your best work.