Principal Front-End Engineer – Web Platform

About the role

Canva is looking for a Principal Front-End Engineer to lead the Web Platform team in Sydney. You will shape how Canva loads, renders, and runs in the browser, ensuring a fast, seamless experience for millions of users.

Key responsibilities

• Own the technical direction for the web platform, setting architecture for server‑side rendering and React Server Components.
• Define quality standards and best‑practice patterns for the entire frontend specialty.
• Drive performance initiatives to achieve sub‑two‑second first‑page load times at Canva scale.
• Build measurement, observability, and engineering discipline that embed performance into the platform.
• Influence and mentor frontend engineers across product teams through design documents, prototypes, and migration guides.

Required profile

• Proven experience leading frontend architecture for large‑scale web applications.
• Deep understanding of web performance engineering and observability.
• Strong communication skills to define standards and guide cross‑functional teams.

Required skills

• React
• Server‑side rendering (SSR)
• React Server Components