Staff Software Engineer, Canvas Core

MURAL; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading visual collaboration platform is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to enhance the Mural editor and backend components. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in computer graphics and distributed systems, contributing to developing high-performance, reliable software. Responsibilities include leading technical projects, collaborating across teams, and focusing on improving developer experience. The role emphasizes creativity and innovation in a fast-paced environment, making it suitable for those passionate about pioneering technology solutions.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in computer graphics, including visual document editors.
• 3+ years in distributed systems like real-time collaboration tools.
• 10+ years of experience in large-scale production software.

Responsibilities

• Research, design, and lead work for new capabilities.
• Collaborate on projects from planning to release.
• Design and implement testing and documentation strategies.

Skills

Fluency in modern JavaScript/TypeScript

Familiarity with React

Experience with Node.js

Technical discussions and collaboration

Job description

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Canvas Core team builds and maintains the foundational platform that powers Mural’s visual thinking experience. This includes the infinite canvas, key editor components like widgets, editing actions, text editing, and side effects, as well as our custom-built graphics rendering engine (built on top of Canvas2D).

We're also responsible for the Mural UI and the real-time message protocol that enables seamless remote collaboration.

Our mission: to ensure the Mural editor is fast, reliable, and intuitive.

We also provide a set of developer-friendly APIs that internal teams use to build features like collaboration tools, integrations, and AI-powered capabilities. We prioritize performance, simplicity, and developer experience, enabling teams to ship quickly on top of our platform.

YOUR MISSION

As a Staff Software Engineer you’ll play a key role in ensuring the Mural editor is reliable, high-performing, and intuitive for our users. You’ll also help design and maintain a suite of components and APIs including our realtime synchronization protocol, render engine, asset management, document editing actions and behaviors like layout, connector routing, text editing and drawing that empower teams across the company to provide features like diagramming, workshops, presentations, integrations, and AI powered tools.

Your role will focus on simplicity, developer experience and performance making it fast and easy for others to build on top of our platform. Staff Engineers at Mural lead, design, and implement complex technical projects that affect multiple teams, contribute to team, department and company-wide processes and culture, and provide mentorship and support for other engineers.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Research, Design, POC plan and lead work for new capabilities and for the technical vision of the Canvas

• Product Engineering work for new capabilities and improvements needed to move the Canvas Platform forward

• As a Staff Engineer you’ll collaborate on and lead projects from design & planning to execution and release

• Prototype, implement, and maintain team projects and features, serving as a technical expert, mentor, and leader

• Build flexible and maintainable solutions while being accountable for quality, performance, and reliability

• Use AI tools as a part of your fundamental workflows

• Design, plan and implement automated testing and documentation strategies for our codebase

• Elevate the team’s skills and knowledge by participating in technical designs and talks and reviewing and helping improve your and your colleague’s code

• Contribute to constantly improving the team’s processes and best practices

WHAT YOU'LL BRING

• Fluency in modern JavaScript/TypeScript, and experience with technologies such as React, Node.js, or other modern frameworks (React, NodeJS, etc.)

• 5+ years of experience in computer graphics, including visual document editors, scene-graphs, quadtrees, matrix calculations, computational geometry and layout

• 3+ years of experience in distributed systems, including real time collaboration tools, MMO games or other real time interactive experiences.

• 10+ years building and shipping large-scale production software as part of an agile engineering team

• Strong track record of designing and delivering scalable, high-performance systems.

• An outcome-oriented and highly-experimental interest in AI-driven development practices

• Proven experience planning technical projects and delivering new systems and features iteratively, with a focus on delivering value to customers quickly

• Strong collaboration and communication skills, able to lead technical discussions and navigate trade-offs effectively

• Experience working in high-growth, fast-paced environments or startups is a plus

Equal Opportunity

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.