Senior Research Scientist – Design Generation

About the role

Canva’s Design Generation team is looking for a senior researcher to lead generative‑model work that powers AI‑assisted design for hundreds of millions of users. You will own end‑to‑end research projects, from problem framing to delivering validated results that ship to 250M+ users.

Key responsibilities

• Train and evaluate large generative models (LLMs, multimodal models) for design generation at scale.
• Design experiments to test model architectures, training approaches and data strategies.
• Build and improve evaluation benchmarks that measure generative design quality.
• Translate research findings into production‑ready techniques and collaborate with product teams.
• Investigate model failure modes and align improvements with user and business needs.

Required profile

• Hands‑on experience training generative models, preferably with image or design generation.
• Ability to define and move metrics that matter for generative quality.
• Strong autonomy and capability to take ambiguous research problems from framing to validated results.
• PhD in AI/ML or related field with at least 2 years industry experience (or 6 years industry experience without a PhD).

Required skills

• Generative models
• Large language models (LLMs)
• Multimodal models (MLLMs)
• Large‑scale data pipelines
• Multi‑GPU training setups
• Diffusion or image generation (bonus)

What we offer

• Equity packages
• Inclusive parental leave
• Annual wellbeing allowance
• Flexible leave options
• Remote‑first culture with a preferred onsite base in Sydney