Principal Software Engineer - Mobile Platform

JobSpace; Auckland; On-site; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity packages

Parental leave policy

Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance

Flexible leave options

Job summary

Canva seeks a Principal Software Engineer for Mobile Platform in Auckland. You will own architectural direction across React Native, iOS and Android, shaping a hybrid mobile platform used by hundreds of millions of users.

The role blends hands-on coding with strategic leadership and cross-team influence, guiding migration and platform adoption at scale. Join a team responsible for performance, reliability and observability, with strong emphasis on native and shared code, and a long-term vision

Qualifications

• Cross-platform architecture at scale: built or evolved large-scale mobile architecture in production.
• Migration at scale: led migration of a mature mobile product onto a new architecture.
• Principal-level technical leadership: set direction across multiple teams with senior engineers.
• Organisation-wide influence: shaped architecture adopted across groups or org.
• Hands-on technical depth: close to code and implementation details.
• Engineering judgement: reason from first principles and guide architecture to scale.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction: own architectural decisions for the hybrid mobile platform across React Native, iOS and Android.
• Get the new platform into production: ship architecture with foundations for performance, reliability and observability.
• Prove it on a real product surface: have a React Native surface live in production within months.
• Lead senior engineers through the migration: anchor for Staff and Senior engineers across Mobile Platform.
• Scale adoption across Canva: drive patterns and gain trust across product teams.

Job description

Principal Software Engineer - Mobile Platform

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

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.

What you'd be doing in this role

Mobile Platform owns how Canva runs on iOS and Android. Every product team at Canva builds on top of what this group ships. Hundreds of millions of users open Canva on a phone or tablet, and the architecture that powers that experience is one of the most important technical bets the company is making right now.

Today, much of Canva's mobile product runs as a web application inside a native app shell. We're moving towards a hybrid architecture built around React and React Native, supported by native iOS and Android capabilities, portable libraries and shared mobile infrastructure.

The ambition is simple to describe and difficult to execute: build once, ship native-feeling experiences across iOS, Android and web.

React Native is the direction we're taking, but this role is bigger than expertise in a single framework. We're also interested in Principal-level engineers who have solved comparable problems through Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform or other production-scale cross-platform architectures, and are excited to transfer that expertise into what we're building.

This is a genuinely rare problem: evolving a mature mobile architecture while the product remains live for hundreds of millions of users and hundreds of engineers continue building on top of it. The decisions made here will shape how Canva builds mobile for the next decade.

At the moment, this role is focused on:

Set the technical direction: Own the key architectural decisions for Canva's hybrid mobile platform across React Native, iOS and Android, including what should be shared, what should remain native, and how those layers work together.

Get the new platform into production: In your first few months, you'll turn the architecture into shipped code, with the foundations for performance, reliability and observability in place.

Prove it on a real product surface: Within six months, the goal is to have a React Native surface live in production, supported by stable capabilities and platform primitives that feature teams can build on.

Lead senior engineers through the migration: Be the architectural anchor for Staff and Senior engineers across Mobile Platform, helping them navigate difficult technical decisions as the new platform takes shape.

Scale adoption across Canva: In the new year, work with major product teams moving onto the platform, establishing patterns engineers trust and choose to use. Over time, you'll become one of Canva's technical voices on mobile architecture, with decisions influencing 800+ frontend engineers.

You're probably a match if...

Experience

Cross-platform architecture at scale: Built or significantly evolved a large-scale cross-platform mobile architecture in production. React Native and React are highly relevant, but deep experience with Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform or another production-scale cross-platform stack can also be compelling.

Migration at scale: Led a meaningful migration of a mature mobile product onto a new architecture while it remained live and growing. The stronger signal is changing an existing system at scale, rather than starting clean.

Principal-level technical leadership: Set technical direction across multiple teams where the answer wasn't obvious, brought senior engineers and leaders with you, and had Staff-level engineers building against the direction you established.

Organisation-wide influence: You've shaped architecture beyond your immediate team, creating platforms, standards or technical direction adopted across multiple groups or a large engineering organisation.

Hands-on technical depth: You're still close to the code and comfortable working through hard implementation details, not just setting direction from a distance.

Engineering judgement: You don't need to arrive as a React Native evangelist. You do need to reason from first principles, challenge assumptions constructively and help make Canva's chosen architecture successful at scale.

Technical knowledge

Mobile runtime: Shared-code runtimes, native boundaries, bundle delivery and performance profiling on real devices

iOS and Android: Deep fundamentals across both platforms and a strong instinct for where shared abstractions stop making sense

Mobile performance: Performance, reliability, crash monitoring and optimisation at scale

Platform architecture: Shared capabilities, libraries, abstractions and infrastructure used across multiple engineering teams

Deep fundamentals: Strong engineering fundamentals, including data structures, complexity and system-level trade-offs

Nice to have

React Native at scale: Deep production experience with React Native and React internals

System languages: Rust or C/C++ for portable libraries that run across mobile platforms

Open-source contributions: React Native, Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform, Expo or the wider cross-platform mobile ecosystem

Mobile CI/CD: Release trains and over-the-air updates at scale

AI fluency: You've used AI tooling in real engineering work and have a view on how it changes the way mobile teams build and operate software.

About the team

You’ll be joining our Client Platform group at Canva, where our mission is to ensure a delightful experience for every user on every device. Client Platform owns the foundations that every product team builds on, including Web Platform, Mobile Platform, and the user-facing surfaces of the product. Hundreds of millions of users sit on top of what this group ships. Every Canva product runs on it.

Mobile Platform is the group inside Client Platform responsible for how Canva runs on iOS and Android. We’re the team of engineers who care deeply about mobile performance, who want to shape how cross-platform mobile gets built at scale, and who want to own the next decade of how Canva runs on a phone or tablet.

The work compounds in two directions at once. Every team at Canva benefits when the mobile platform gets faster and more capable. And the architectural decisions made here will outlast most of the systems built on top of them.

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 stack 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. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.