Canva
Computer Software
PrincipalPartnerEngineer—Ecosystem
“Principal Partner Engineer — Ecosystem at Canva. Skills: Partner engineering, Platform engineering, AI platform stack, Agentic API design. Drive decisions and alignment across Partners and Canva engineering. Explain why a solution won't work”
What You'll Achieve.
Partner decision backed by a runnable artifact; Overall surface stays coherent as new capabilities land; Carry platform direction outward early; Shape strategic partner and customer engagements; Bring each of them closer to resolution; Shape how the world's most-used visual design platform shows up in the world's most-used AI systems for years
Industry & Context.
Resolve misalignments; Turn ambiguous partner signal into crisp engineering decisions
Work on Pacific Time hours, Collaborate with Canva's engineering teams in AEST
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
10+ years of software engineering experience, Roles operating at the seam between partner engineering, platform engineering, and product, Built developer platforms, Shipped code in production on platforms used by external developers, Move fluidly between a product roadmap conversation, a system design discussion, and a partner negotiation, Bring a prototype or sample code to a hard conversation, Technically deep on the modern AI platform stack, Opinions on MCP, tool-use, agentic API design, and the tradeoffs between them, Communicate directly, Resolve misalignments by writing clearly, Worked inside product stacks that are heterogeneous and move fast, Orient yourself quickly in a codebase you didn't write, Raise the technical bar across Ecosystem engineering by sharing knowledge, feedback and bringing others into partner facing wins
Nice to Have
Hands-on experience shipping or integrating with MCP (Anthropic, OpenAI, Copilot, or Gemini flavours), TypeScript, Comfortable across front-end (React) and server-side JavaScript, Ability to read a Java backend, Track record of turning ambiguous partner signal into crisp engineering decisions that Product and Engineering acted on
What You'll Do.
Drive decisions and alignment across Partners and Canva engineering
Explain why a solution won't work
Generate realistic option sets
Drive solutions to a decision
Hold technical detail on both sides
Translate without losing precision
Set technical direction for Canva's external platform surface
Contribute to strategic direction
Ground partner conversations in working code
Validate proposed solutions against Canva's real architecture
Drive decisions with proof point
Sketch what a change could look like in code
Drive product-line engineering across external platform surfaces
Ensure overall surface stays coherent
Carry platform direction outward early
Hear direction as it forms
Carry direction to partners
Shape strategic partner and customer engagements
Lead technical relationship end-to-end
Carry decisions back through Canva
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
Collaborate daily with Canva's engineering teams; Drive decisions and alignment across Partners and Canva engineering; Work across all of them, making sure the overall surface stays coherent; Sit inside Ecosystem engineering leadership; Works closely with the Ecosystem leadership team; Partners directly with our Head of Partnerships
Communication Scope
Communicate directly; Resolve misalignments by writing clearly
Process & Methodology
Drive decisions, Drive solutions, Drive product-line engineering, Drive spikes, Drive decisions that multiple teams and partners
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