Engineering Manager (Android / React Native) - Native Features

Company Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Job Description

As Canva scales, change continues to be part of our DNA. This role gives you a taste of the type of things you’ll be working on when you start, but these may evolve.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coach a team of 3‑6 engineers building native Android features inside Canva’s React Native app, helping them grow, shipping great work, and raising the bar on what’s possible on mobile.
• Dive into technical detail with your team, working through challenges in native modules, lifecycle and memory management, performance, and the bridge between Android and React Native.
• Partner with product, design and platform teams to shape the roadmap, and drive planning and refinement of cycle goals to keep company, group and team aligned.
• Champion performance and stability across the stack – startup time, jank, memory, crash rate – and build a culture where engineering craft is something everyone cares about.
• Own the delivery of large, cross‑team initiatives end‑to‑end, from ideation to completion, with the autonomy to make real decisions.

What You’ll Need

• Experience leading or mentoring engineers, genuinely caring about helping people grow in their careers.
• Deep hands‑on experience building and shipping Android apps in Kotlin (with familiarity in Java), using modern Android architecture and Jetpack libraries.
• Built and shipped React Native apps and understand what makes the native‑to‑React Native bridge tick.
• Strong understanding of Android internals – app lifecycle, memory management, threading, concurrency, and performance profiling.
• Solid grounding in CS and engineering fundamentals: concurrency, data structures, architecture, and design patterns.
• Ability to break complex, ambiguous problems into smaller deliverable pieces – and bring a team along to get there.
• Clear communication across product, design and engineering, in writing and conversation.

About The Team

The Native Features team lives at the boundary between Canva and the device in every user’s pocket. They own native features that make Canva feel fast, fluid and genuinely at home on mobile – from native UI components and media pipelines to home‑screen widgets and background processing. They are currently rebuilding the video editor natively to dramatically improve performance, with Home and Video Templates features coming next. Their work shapes how hundreds of millions of people open, create and share on mobile.

About The Role

This role is about coaching a technically deep team working across Android and React Native. You’ll be close enough to the stack to understand real challenges – native modules, lifecycle, performance, the bridge – while owning people growth and end‑to‑end delivery for one of Canva’s most mobile‑critical teams. It’s a role for someone who wants to lead without losing touch with the craft.

Benefits

• Equity packages – we want our success to be yours too.
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers.
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support wellbeing, social connection, office setup and more.
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and support you personally.

Other Details

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more information. We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. 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 feel your skills don’t match exactly what is listed above, we still want to hear from you. Interviews are conducted virtually.