Research Engineering Manager – Image Generation (m/f/x) – Canva Austria

Job Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Servus, 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, Australia but Austria is home to part of our European operations. And 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.

Fun fact, a big part of our Austrian operations is developing the AI product within Canva to help reimagine how artificial intelligence can be used in design. Pretty cool ha!

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:

• Coaching, mentoring, and growing a team of machine learning engineers and researchers while developing your coaching capability. Technical decisions will be the responsibility of the team engineering lead with whom you will partner.
• Model initiative and ownership in achieving goals, improving processes and solutions
• Identify opportunities for cross-team collaboration to work on new ideas and improvements that help achieve our goals
• Facilitate knowledge sharing and effectively advocate for engineering needs to non-technical stakeholders within the group
• Close collaboration with the product managers to understand and contribute to the product roadmap.
• Drive the planning and refinement of seasonal goals, ensuring alignment between the company, group, and teams.
• Foster a collaboration culture and advocate for non-technical collaborators’ engineering needs within the group.
• Own and drive the delivery of large, cross-team, and cross-group initiatives and projects from ideation to completion.

You’re probably a match if

• You are experienced in both technical and people leadership, driving decisions and delivering outcomes on technical projects. This role focuses on management, so previous experience managing and developing direct reports is a must.
• You’ve got previous experience as an ML Researcher or leading ML research teams, with a proven track record in managing long-term research projects in the ML space.
• You have experience or a strong interest in computer vision and ideally generative AI since this team works on image-generation models.
• You have great research skills and can stay abreast of the latest developments in deep learning and generative AI. You are capable of translating cutting-edge research into practical solutions that enhance Canvas content library and user experience.
• You can support the team in balancing exploratory/innovative work with high-priority feature delivery
• You can effectively communicate (inside the team and outside) the value of short—and long-term features, translating technical details to business value and building support and trust from stakeholders.

About the team

In this role, you will lead a team of exceptional Machine Learning Engineers and Applied Scientists focused on advancing the field of image generation AI. You will have the opportunity to mentor and coach your team to achieve their full potential while collaborating on generative AI models that will be used by millions of users each month, making an impact across the globe. As part of a dynamic team, you will have the freedom to explore new ideas, experiment with novel solutions, and implement creative approaches to enhance our products. With a focus on delivering high-quality AI solutions on time and within scope, you will play an integral role in fostering a positive and productive work environment that encourages collaboration, open communication, and continuous learning and development opportunities.

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.

At Canva we value fairness, and we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation whilst ensuring internal equity within the team in each region. We make hiring decisions based on your skills, experience and our overall assessment of what we observed and learnt in the hiring process. The starting salary for this position is EUR 80,000. When calculating offers, we make salary decisions based on market data and candidates’ skills and experience.

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.

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.