Design Systems - Frontend Software Engineer

Canva and Project F

Canva has participated in Project F’s Program 50/50 since November 2019. Since then they have worked diligently to remove the systemic barriers identified for women in tech teams so that they can sustainably build gender-balanced teams.

This work is not easy and requires a consistent focus on structural change, removing bias from processes and systems and shifting the narrative on diversity and inclusion. Co-founder Cliff Obrecht is the Executive Sponsor of the program at Canva. Crystal Boysen, Head of People is leading the change across the entire organisation. The unique challenge of achieving gender balance within the subculture of technology has been made a strategic imperative and therefore treated as a high priority.

Job description - Frontend Software Engineer

Canva work to make a significant positive impact on society. Their mission is to democratise design and empower creation.

Since launching in April 2013 they have grown exponentially, and the journey has only just begun. Join Canva, and be part of this adventure. They are one of the world’s fastest-growing startups. Your colleagues, like you, will be the top of the industry. It’s important to them to create a workplace that you love coming to.

Their culture is unlike anywhere else and their offices are designed and constantly improved to let you do your best work. At Canva you can be part of a company that is growing rapidly, building a product that users really love. Just check out their Twitter stream!

Engineering is a core part of who they are. You will work with a carefully selected team of ex-Google, VMware, ThoughtWorks, and Atlassian engineers. The team takes pride in its focus on engineering fundamentals. They strive to use the most appropriate tools for the tasks at hand and to strike a measured balance between getting things done and long term maintainability. The team is tight, with no big egos, and welcomes engineers to come and join in on the adventure. Engineers frequently host sessions where a new idea or software engineering practice is discussed — this ensures that everyone in the team is constantly learning.

They work hard to get their fundamentals right across the business. Consequently, the frontend codebase is constantly being improved and optimised so new features can be implemented easily. They also have a flat structure where engineers are invited to comment on the direction their peers are taking on features. When a new feature is being built, engineers review each other’s code; this ensures that knowledge is shared and it doesn’t need to be reworked.

Design Systems needs an engineer to be able to start the design systems team. Design System is Canva’s component library which is currently being maintained and worked on by lots of people in the company but it lacks consistency and a maintainer that rallies and coordinates between the stakeholders. This engineer would help to bootstrap the creation of new components and provide guidance to other teams on when/where/how components should be created.

Responsibilities

“Gets” design or at least has some design sensibilities
Able to work autonomously
Comfortable starting as a follower (lots of items in the backlog which need doing) with the aim of moving towards a Lead position helping to decide the outcome and direction for the team
Strong communicator and stakeholder management (will need to work in conjunction with many other teams prioritising key components and guiding other teams on how to make consistent components that can be added to the design system)
Ideally, some experience working on design systems or maintaining components within a complex engineering environment

Requirements

Knowledge of JavaScript and web technologies (HTML/CSS)
Experience developing rich applications with HTML/CSS/JS
Intimate knowledge of cross-browser and cross-device development
Ability to write high-performance, reusable code for UI components, including appropriate testing
Passion for performance debugging and benchmarking
Minimum of two years experience
Computer science fundamentals