Staff Software Engineer – Video Platform

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Australia.

📋 Description

• Create and maintain high-performance C++ services, frameworks, and tools that power Canva's audio and video processing platform.

• Design and implement distributed systems for the ingestion, processing, storage, and delivery of multimedia content to millions of users worldwide.

• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and designers to enhance video editing and playback experiences.

• Optimize multimedia processing pipelines for reliability, performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

• Develop platform capabilities that support Canva's video and multimedia ecosystem.

• Promote engineering excellence through testing, code reviews, operational best practices, and ongoing improvement.

• Address complex production challenges and contribute to the advancement of Canva's video infrastructure.

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive commercial experience in building highly scalable, secure, and performant backend systems using C++.

• Solid understanding of computer science and software engineering principles, including concurrency, multithreading, memory management, data structures, architecture, and design patterns.

• Experience in designing and operating distributed systems and scalable backend architectures.

• Practical experience with cloud platforms and services in production settings.

• Proficient in diagnosing, debugging, and resolving complex performance and reliability challenges.

• Familiarity with modern video codecs such as H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP9, or AV1.

• In-depth experience with multimedia frameworks and libraries like FFmpeg and/or GStreamer, including source-level debugging, architecture analysis, performance profiling, and custom patch development.

• Proven experience in building large-scale video ingestion, storage, transcoding, processing, and delivery systems.

• Strong knowledge of multimedia containers and formats such as MP4 and WebM.

• Contributions to FFmpeg, GStreamer, or other open-source multimedia projects are a plus.

• Experience with adaptive bitrate streaming technologies such as DASH, HLS, or CMAF is a plus.

• Experience in tuning encoding pipelines is a plus.

• Experience working with Java-based services in large-scale distributed environments is a plus.

• Willingness to work in Sydney, Australia.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity packages.

• An inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents and caregivers.

• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to promote wellbeing, social connection, office setup, and more.

• Flexible leave options.

• Virtual interviews.