Principal Partner Engineer - Ecosystem

About the role

This position functions as a critical technical liaison between Canva and leading artificial intelligence providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. The individual in this role is responsible for steering the evolution of our developer platform by ensuring that engineering capabilities are in sync with the strategic goals of our key partners. You will own the complex integration challenges that arise when external advanced AI systems meet our internal production environments. This involves translating high-level partner ambitions into clear technical constraints and opportunities for the engineering organization. You will act as the primary technical advocate for Canva's platform vision during the earliest stages of partner discussions. The role requires building working prototypes to validate ideas and prove feasibility before large-scale implementation commitments are made. You will ensure that our middleware and platform surfaces maintain a coherent architectural identity despite the diverse demands of multiple product lines. Success in this role means enabling external partners to build effectively on Canva while protecting the integrity of our core systems.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Orchestrate technical alignment between external AI partners and internal engineering squads to resolve integration bottlenecks.
• Architect the technical roadmap for Canva's external platform surfaces, focusing on MCP, REST APIs, and the Apps platform.
• Build working code prototypes to validate proposed solutions and demonstrate technical feasibility to cross-functional stakeholders.
• Oversee product-line engineering across middleware Platform as a Service and external platform surfaces to ensure architectural coherence.
• Represent Canva's platform direction to strategic partners early in the development cycle to influence their technical roadmaps.
• Manage end-to-end technical relationships for flagship AI platform engagements and strategic enterprise customers.
• Translate ambiguous partner requirements into concrete engineering specifications and decision logs.
• Implement robust testing frameworks to verify that integrations between Canva and partner systems remain stable and performant.
• Facilitate knowledge transfer sessions to upskill internal engineers on new partner technologies and integration patterns.
• Monitor the performance of production integrations and drive optimizations based on real-world usage data and partner feedback.

Requirements

• Bring 10+ years of professional software engineering experience to solve complex problems in a production environment.
• Demonstrate a proven history of working in roles that bridge partner engineering, platform engineering, and product management responsibilities.
• Show evidence of building and shipping developer platforms that are consumed by external third-party developers and organizations.
• Exhibit the ability to navigate complex, fast-moving, and heterogeneous codebases spanning multiple programming languages and services.
• Possess deep technical knowledge of modern AI stacks, including agentic API design patterns, tool-use mechanisms, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

-拥有强大的沟通能力，能够通过清晰的书面文档解决技术分歧并推动决策。

• You are comfortable making technical decisions in environments with incomplete information and rapidly changing priorities.
• You must be willing to adhere to all company policies and code of conduct as a representative of Canva.

Nice to have

• Hands-on practical experience shipping or integrating with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) from providers such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Copilot, or Gemini.
• Demonstrated proficiency in TypeScript, including React for frontend development, and server-side JavaScript for backend services, with the ability to read and understand Java code.
• A track record of successfully converting ambiguous partner feedback into actionable engineering decisions and technical specifications.

Skills & tools

• Expertise with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for enabling secure and efficient AI tool integration.
• Strong experience designing and consuming REST APIs to enable reliable communication between distributed systems.
• Solid understanding of TypeScript for building type-safe and maintainable application logic.
• Experience developing user interfaces with React to create responsive and intuitive developer tools.
• Comfort working with JavaScript to implement asynchronous logic and handle real-time data streams.
• The ability to read Java code for the purpose of integration and debugging, even if you are not writing new Java code.
• Experience working with middleware PaaS platforms that abstract infrastructure complexity and provide scalable runtime environments.

Practical notes

• This role requires availability during Pacific Time hours to ensure effective collaboration with engineering teams in AEST regions.
• The position offers a comprehensive equity package designed to align long-term value with company performance.
• An annual Vibe and Thrive allowance is provided to support personal growth and team well-being initiatives.
• The company maintains an inclusive parental leave policy to support all employees during major life events.
• All interviews for this position will be conducted virtually to ensure a flexible and efficient hiring process.
• Applicants are encouraged to include their pronouns and to disclose any requests for reasonable accommodations during the application and interview stages.