Machine Learning Engineering Manager - Evaluations

Company 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!

Job Description

As Canva grows, so does the impact and opportunity of our AI-powered features. We're looking for a Machine Learning Engineering Manager to coach a team of world-class Research Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers, build production-ready evaluation systems, and turn cutting-edge ML capabilities into delightful product experiences. If you thrive in bridging rigorous engineering with practical application, and you love helping others grow whilst solving hard technical problems - this could be the role for you.

About the Role:

You will lead and grow a team of high-performing Machine Learning Engineers and Research Scientists (EU based) who are advancing the future of AI at scale. Your focus will be on setting strategic technical direction, coaching others to deliver impactful engineering solutions, and ensuring the deployment of robust, scalable ML systems into production. You'll champion both engineering excellence and measurable impact, bridging foundational model capabilities with real-world deployment across Canva's platform.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who is passionate about cultivating talent, shaping a technical vision, and partnering cross-functionally to embed cutting-edge AI into delightful user experiences.

At the moment, this role is focused on:

• Coaching and mentoring a high-performing team of Machine Learning Engineers and Research Scientists.
• Owning the evaluation infrastructure - Design, build, and maintain robust evaluation systems, quality metrics, safety monitoring, red-teaming, competitive benchmarking - to guarantee enterprise readiness and user delight at scale.
• Building automated metrics that reliably predict human aesthetic judgment across dimensions like visual hierarchy, layout coherence, typography, and brand alignment.
• Advising on human evaluation pipelines and closing the loop between user signals and model improvements.
• Setting technical strategy in alignment with Canva's AI and product goals.
• Guiding engineering direction across model deployment, evaluation infrastructure, and production systems.
• Partnering cross-functionally to ensure ML capabilities translate into reliable product impact.

You're probably a match if you:

• Have led machine learning engineering teams, with a strong track record of coaching and delivering production systems.
• Possess expert knowledge in deploying and scaling generative models (Diffusion, GANs, VAEs, LLMs) in production environments with a strong focus on visual models (image, video, design).
• Bring hands-on experience building ML infrastructure, evaluation pipelines, and monitoring systems at scale.
• Excel at creating data-driven evaluation methodologies, turning user analytics and production metrics into clear, actionable insights.
• Have strong systems design skills and experience with MLOps, model serving, and production reliability.
• Have experience with visual quality assessment, aesthetic modelling, or human preference learning – bonus if you've tackled the gap between automated metrics and human raters.
• Understand design principles (hierarchy, balance, typography, colour theory) well enough to operationalise them as measurable signals.
• Thrive in collaborative environments and communicate clearly with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Stay current with both SOTA research trends and engineering best practices, energised by continuous learning.

Additional Information

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

Please note that interviews are predominantly conducted virtually.