Principal Software Engineer - Mobile Platform

About the Role

Join our team that is revolutionizing the design experience worldwide. As a Principal Software Engineer in the Mobile Platform group, you will drive the future of Canva's mobile presence on iOS and Android devices. This role focuses on evolving our hybrid mobile architecture that combines React Native, native platform capabilities, and shared libraries to deliver seamless native experiences across mobile and web.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the technical architecture decisions for Canva’s mobile platform across React Native, iOS, and Android.
• Translate architectural plans into production-ready code with foundational performance, stability, and observability.
• Deliver a live React Native product surface with robust capabilities supporting feature teams within six months.
• Mentor and guide senior engineers during the migration process, resolving complex technical challenges.
• Collaborate across product teams to encourage platform adoption, establish trustworthy engineering patterns, and influence frontend architecture across 800+ engineers.

Candidate Profile

Ideal candidates will have:

• Proven experience designing and enhancing large-scale cross-platform mobile architectures in production, especially with React Native, Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform, or similar technologies.
• Successfully led the migration of a mature mobile product architecture while it remained live and scaled.
• Exemplary principal-level technical leadership, driving direction and consensus across multiple teams.
• Demonstrated impact on organization-wide architectural decisions, platforms, and standards.
• Hands-on coding proficiency and depth in handling challenging implementation details.
• Strong engineering judgement based on first principles relevant to high-scale mobile architectures.

Technical Expertise

• Mobile runtimes including shared code execution, native integration, bundle delivery, and performance profiling on devices.
• Deep understanding of iOS and Android internals with a keen sense of when platform-specific abstractions are necessary.
• Expertise in optimizing mobile performance, reliability, crash analysis, and large-scale monitoring.
• Experience creating shared capabilities, libraries, and mobile infrastructure across teams.
• Strong grasp of software engineering fundamentals including data structures, algorithmic complexity, and system trade-offs.

Preferred Skills

• Extensive production experience with React Native and React internals.
• Knowledge of system programming languages like Rust or C/C++ for building portable mobile libraries.
• Contributions to open-source projects within React Native, Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform, or similar cross-platform ecosystems.
• Expertise with mobile continuous integration/delivery systems, including release trains and over-the-air updates.
• Familiarity with AI tools applied in software engineering and perspectives on their impact on mobile development.

About the Team

You will join the Client Platform group dedicated to delivering outstanding user experiences across devices, powering all of Canva’s product teams. The Mobile Platform team specifically focuses on ensuring performance and scalability on iOS and Android, shaping the next decade of Canva’s mobile technology.

Benefits and Culture

• Equity opportunities aligning your rewards with company success.
• Inclusive parental leave policies supporting all families and carers.
• Annual allowance for wellbeing, social connection, and office setup.
• Flexible leave policies to support personal growth and recovery.

Additional Information

Hiring decisions consider your skills, experience, enthusiasm, and cultural fit. Please share your preferred pronouns and any interview accommodations you require. Interviews are conducted virtually.