Engineering Manager (Android / React Native) - Native Features

Canva; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity packages

Parental leave policy

Thrive allowance

Job summary

Canva is hiring a senior engineering leader to coach a technically deep team responsible for native Android features inside Canva's React Native app. You’ll stay close to the stack, guiding architecture and performance while growing engineers.

You’ll partner with product, design and platform teams to shape roadmaps and drive end‑to‑end delivery for mobile initiatives across multiple campuses in Australia.

Qualifications

• Experience leading or mentoring engineers and helping them grow.
• Deep hands-on Android development in Kotlin (and Java familiarity).
• Shipping React Native apps and understanding Android-to-React Native bridge.
• Strong knowledge of Android lifecycle, memory management, performance.
• Solid CS foundations and software design skills.
• Able to break complex problems into deliverable steps and lead a team.

Responsibilities

• Coach and grow a 3-6 engineer team focused on native Android features inside Canva's React Native app.
• Delve into native modules, lifecycle, performance, and bridge topics with the team.
• Collaborate with product, design and platform teams to shape roadmap and plan cycles.
• Drive performance, stability and engineering craft across the stack.
• Own end-to-end delivery of large cross-team initiatives with autonomy.

Skills

Team leadership

Android Kotlin

React Native

Native bridge knowledge

Android internals

CS fundamentals

Communication

Tools

Android Jetpack

Java

Job description

Company Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Where and how you can work

Our flagship campus is in Sydney. We also have a campus in Melbourne and co‑working spaces in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. But you have choice in where and how you work, we trust our Canvanauts to choose the balance that empowers them and their team to achieve their goals.

Job Description

What you’d be doing in this role

As Canva scales change continues to be part of our DNA. But we like to think that’s all part of the fun. So this will give you the flavour of the type of things you’ll be working on when you start, but this will likely evolve.

At the moment, this role is focused on:

• Leading and coaching a team of 3-6 engineers building native Android features inside Canva's React Native app - helping them grow, shipping great work, and raising the bar on what’s possible on mobile
• Getting into the technical detail with your team - working through challenges in native modules, lifecycle and memory management, performance, and the bridge between Android and React Native
• Partnering with product, design and platform teams to shape the roadmap, and driving planning and refinement of cycle goals to keep company, group and team aligned
• Championing performance and stability across the stack - startup time, jank, memory, crash rate - and building a culture where engineering craft is something everyone cares about
• Owning the delivery of large, cross‑team initiatives end‑to‑end, from ideation to completion, with the autonomy to make real decisions

You’re probably a match if you

• Have experience leading or mentoring engineers, and genuinely care about helping people grow in their careers
• Have deep hands‑on experience building and shipping Android apps in Kotlin (with familiarity in Java), using modern Android architecture and Jetpack libraries
• Have built and shipped React Native apps and understand what makes the native‑to‑React Native bridge tick - from native modules and platform APIs through to the cross‑platform layer
• Understand Android internals well - app lifecycle, memory management, threading, concurrency, and performance profiling
• Are grounded in CS and engineering fundamentals: concurrency, data structures, architecture, and design patterns
• Know how to break complex, ambiguous problems into smaller, deliverable pieces - and can bring a team along with you to get there
• Communicate clearly across product, design and engineering, in writing and in conversation

About the team

The Native Features team lives at the boundary between Canva and the device in every user’s pocket. They own the native features that make Canva feel fast, fluid and genuinely at home on mobile - from native UI components and media pipelines to home‑screen widgets and background processing. Right now, the team is rebuilding the video editor natively to dramatically improve performance, with Home and Video Templates features coming next. Their work shapes how hundreds of millions of people open, create and share on mobile - often the first and most frequent touchpoint someone has with Canva.

About the role

This role is about coaching a technically deep team working across Android and React Native. You’ll be close enough to the stack to understand the real challenges - native modules, lifecycle, performance, the bridge - while owning people growth and end‑to‑end delivery for one of Canva’s most mobile‑critical teams. It’s a role for someone who wants to lead without losing touch with the craft.

What’s in it for you?

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you’ll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too. We also offer a range of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.

Here’s a taste of what’s on offer:

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.

Other stuff to know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture.

We celebrate all types of skills and backgrounds at Canva so even if you don’t feel like your skills quite match what’s listed above - we still want to hear from you!

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.

• Recruitment type: Permanent