Staff AI Automation Engineer

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 Sydney campus is uniquely Canva - an extension of our Surry Hills neighbourhood. It’s a thoughtfully designed space with plenty of room to collaborate, focus, and connect. This role is based in Sydney, and we’re looking for someone who calls it home. Our hybrid way of working gives you the flexibility to work remotely, and to come together on campus for meaningful in-person collaboration and connection when it matters most. We trust our Canvanauts to choose the balance that empowers them and their team to achieve their goals. 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. At the moment, this role is focused on: Building MCP connectors and tool integrations that give a team of AI agents two-way access to the platforms our country specialists use today — analytics, SEO, search console, content tools, marketing platforms, and our internal data warehouse. Building the data pipelines that surface real-time market data (performance metrics, product usage, conversion funnels, content engagement) into a queryable layer the agents can act on. Designing, building, and evaluating the skills that agents execute: reusable blueprints for work cycles like SEO analysis, content production, localisation QA, and market reporting. Partnering directly with a Country Manager to iterate on agent performance against real MAU and ARR outcomes in-market, and tightening the feedback loop between human direction and agent output. Replacing manual processes with live tooling as the harness comes online, so the team is shipping into a real market from week one. Documenting the harness, skills, and evaluation framework so the model is repeatable as we deploy to additional markets. You're probably a match if You are firmly grounded in computer science and engineering fundamentals and have experience developing web applications. You have hands-on experience managing cloud platform configurations, preferably in AWS (with Azure or GCP as a bonus). You have experience working with infrastructure for system integration — APIs, webhooks, event pipelines, and ideally MCP. You bring 7–10+ years of experience in system engineering, system architecture, applied AI engineering, or an equivalent technical role. You have hands-on experience building or evaluating LLM-based agents, tools, or skills — or strong engineering fundamentals and a clear appetite to go deep on agent architecture quickly. You're comfortable working close to the metric: shipping into a live operation and iterating on what real market data tells you. You communicate effectively and confidently, both verbal and written forms. You have hands-on experience using AI in your work to drive greater impact. About the team The AI Country Team is a brand new team with a simple objective: accelerate Canva's growth in international markets. We're doing it by pairing a Country Manager with a team of AI engineers who build the tools needed to succeed in specialist domains: SEO, content, marketing, product, localisation. This is a small founding team tackling a wide-open problem space. There are no established playbooks yet, giving early hires the opportunity to shape the team's direction, define how the work gets done, and build solutions from the ground up. If you thrive in ambiguity and enjoy creating impact from day one, this role is for you. As an Staff AI Systems Engineer, you'll sit at the centre of the build. You'll own the wiring between Canva's internal systems, third-party platforms, a