Staff Software Engineer - Video Performance - (Bay area only)

About the role

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design. Our flagship office is in Sydney, Australia, with a hub in San Francisco for US operations. We offer flexibility in how and where you work, trusting our team to choose the balance that empowers them and their team to achieve their goals.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end performance strategy across the video creation lifecycle — from timeline scrubbing and real-time preview through to export and rendering.
• Identify bottlenecks and drive measurable improvements to the editing experience.
• Profile and optimize critical paths in our C++ native engine, GLSL/HLSL shaders, and ML-powered effect pipelines to reduce latency and memory footprint.
• Design and build observability systems including internal profiling tools and automated regression suites that capture key performance metrics (FPS, jank, memory usage, thermal behavior) across Web, iOS, and Android.
• Define and own performance metrics that directly reflect user-perceived fluidity and creative flow — ensuring performance remains a first-class product feature.
• Collaborate across teams with Video Engine and AI engineers to evolve system architecture for improved parallelism, cache locality, and asynchronous processing.
• Leverage hardware acceleration using platform-specific APIs (Metal, Vulkan, WebGPU) to unlock maximum performance across diverse consumer hardware.

Requirements

• You treat performance as a product feature. You’ve optimized complex, multi-threaded systems and can reason clearly about trade-offs between latency, memory, and maintainability.
• You think in systems. You understand how frontend, backend, and native engines interact to create seamless user experiences at scale.
• Strong proficiency in C++.
• Experience with modern systems languages (e.g., Rust) is a plus.
• Strong understanding of CPU/GPU architectures, memory hierarchies, and SIMD.
• Experience working with graphics APIs such as OpenGL, Metal, or Vulkan.
• You’re fluent in profiling and diagnostics. You’ve used tools such as Perf, Instruments, Chrome DevTools, Systrace, or custom telemetry systems to uncover bottlenecks and guide engineering decisions.
• You understand multimedia fundamentals. You have experience with video codecs (H.264/5, VP9, AV1), container formats, and frame-accurate seeking and composition.
• You use data to validate impact. You analyze telemetry at scale to identify regressions and measure improvements.
• You elevate those around you. You influence peers and partner teams to prioritize performance and long-term quality.

About the team

The Video Group at Canva is redefining how millions of people tell stories. We’re a global, interdisciplinary team of rendering engineers, AI researchers, and product builders working toward ambitious goals. In San Francisco, you’ll join a high-impact team building the performant foundation that enables our creative ambitions. We value technical excellence, thoughtful collaboration, and building systems that empower creativity for everyone.

Benefits

• Equity packages — we want our success to be yours too.
• Health benefits plans to support you and your wellbeing.
• 401(k) retirement plan with company contribution.
• 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 support you personally.

Pay

The target salary range for this position is $251,000 to $329,000. We make salary decisions based on market data and candidates' skills and experience.