Staff Data Scientist - Canva Growth

Company Description

Job Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

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. We also have a campus in Melbourne and co-working spaces in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. But you have choice in where and how you work. That means if you want to do your thing in the office (if you're near one), at home or a bit of both, it's up to you.

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.

In this position, you’ll play a critical role in shaping the technical roadmap for our Growth Supergroup by leading the development of new capabilities that support scalable growth. We need someone who can demonstrate strong collaboration skills and act as a key partner in advancing Canva’s AI-driven data strategy. You’ll work with cutting-edge technologies like GraphDBs, Snowflake, and AI-powered systems, ensuring that we are at the forefront of data science and innovation.

You won’t just be responding to data requests; you’ll be driving proactive change. This role is for a technical guru who can identify and implement large-scale, AI-driven solutions, optimize data infrastructure and leverage automation for long-term growth. You’ll partner closely with leadership across data, product, and machine learning teams to build systems that ensure efficiency, scalability, and the adoption of new technologies.

At The Moment, This Role Is Focused On

This role will rely on your particular strengths and experience in fleshing out new capabilities, communicating closely with stakeholders, and maintaining a highly proactive attitude. Specific examples of responsibilities are outlined below:

• Technical Leadership: Lead and mentor Growth analytics engineers, helping to elevate technical skills across the team while driving platform-level innovations.
• New Capability Development: Design and test new capabilities, exploring the value and how we could scale across Canva. Drive the adoption of new technologies like GraphDBs and AI-enhanced data models.
• AI Integration: Collaborate with Machine Learning Engineers to develop a sustainable and scalable personalization framework. Help integrate AI-driven capabilities, such as OpenAI, to streamline experiment reporting and impact analysis.
• Proactive Problem-Solving: Act as a technical "SWAT" team, jumping into the most critical and complex data problems that require immediate solutions but lack existing capacity within the embedded teams.
• Stakeholder Partnership: Work closely with data leadership and cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for innovation and implement technical solutions that align with business goals.

You're probably a match if

• You have Advanced SQL Competency: Expert-level skills in SQL, with experience in data warehousing solutions like Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery.
• You have AI and Machine Learning Knowledge: While not a machine learning expert, you should have a good understanding of how AI/ML can be integrated into data platforms to improve personalization, automation, and reporting.
• You have strong Stakeholder Management: Excellent communication skills with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts and collaborate with non-technical stakeholders effectively.
• You have worked in a tech company before and are familiar with the way a tech company operates and some of the concepts particular to our industry (e.g. growth accounting, product funnels, designing analytic events, etc.)
• You have experience with R or Python, and have dealt with large datasets before.
• You have Subscription Data Expertise preferably: Familiarity with subscription-based business models and collaborative product data sets.
• Hands-on experience with integrating AI solutions into data analytics workflows is a strong plus.

About the team
Our Growth Supergroup is tasked with driving Canva’s user and revenue growth through data-driven, product-led strategies. We focus on scaling the adoption of our subscription products—Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Canva Enterprise—across businesses of all sizes.

As the business expands, we’re investing heavily in growing a high-performance, cross-functional team that includes Product, Growth, Marketing, Sales, and Data. Our goal is to supercharge growth through better data insights, AI integration, and scalable platform solutions. In just three years, our data team has grown from 3 to 50 professionals, and there is a constant need to enhance our technical infrastructure to support hypergrowth.

In this role, you’ll lead initiatives that optimize data efficiency, build out new experimentation and personalization capabilities, and introduce AI to elevate our growth strategy. Your work will range from deep technical dives, such as scaling our Snowflake infrastructure and exploring AI-driven personalization frameworks, to high-impact, strategic efforts like automating revenue and experiment data analysis with OpenAI integrations (combining the qual and quant!).

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.

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.

Qualifications

Additional Information