Staff Software Engineer

About the role

Canva is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our team in Sydney to help build our global multimedia infrastructure. You will focus on designing and maintaining the systems that power audio and video processing for millions of users.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Develop and maintain C++ frameworks, services, and tools for audio and video processing.
• Design distributed systems for the ingestion, storage, processing, and delivery of multimedia content.
• Partner with product managers, designers, and other engineers to improve video editing and playback features.
• Enhance multimedia pipelines to improve performance, reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Create new platform capabilities to support our growing video ecosystem.
• Lead engineering standards through code reviews, testing, and operational improvements.
• Resolve production issues and contribute to the long-term roadmap of our video infrastructure.

Requirements

• Professional experience building scalable, secure, and performant backend systems using C++.
• Strong grasp of computer science fundamentals, including multithreading, concurrency, memory management, and system architecture.
• Experience designing and managing distributed backend systems.
• Practical experience with cloud platforms in production environments.
• Ability to debug and resolve complex performance and reliability problems.
• Experience with modern video codecs including H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP9, or AV1.
• Proficiency with multimedia frameworks such as FFmpeg or GStreamer, including source-level debugging and custom patch development.
• Experience building systems for video ingestion, transcoding, and delivery.
• Familiarity with multimedia containers such as MP4 and WebM.

Nice to have

• Contributions to open-source multimedia projects like FFmpeg or GStreamer.
• Experience with adaptive bitrate streaming technologies such as DASH, HLS, or CMAF.
• Background in tuning encoding pipelines for quality and storage efficiency.
• Experience working with Java-based services in large-scale environments.

Skills & tools

• C++
• Java
• FFmpeg
• GStreamer
• Distributed systems
• Cloud platforms
• Video codecs (H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP9, AV1)
• Streaming protocols (DASH, HLS, CMAF)

Practical notes

• Benefits include equity packages, inclusive parental leave, and an annual Vibe and Thrive allowance.
• We utilize a hybrid work model based in Sydney.
• Interviews are conducted virtually.
• Please include your pronouns and any requirements for interview adjustments in your application.