Canva has an engineering leadership problem
Canva has an engineering leadership problem
Product, values, and company culture are great.
Maybe a bit over the top at times, but it's a positive and mostly enjoyable workplace.
Engineering leadership at Canva has some significant hurdles to overcome still. This is mainly a problem caused by the top level, but it's propagated to the middle level too.
They have a non-standard leadership structure and insist on reinventing the wheel in weird and wonderful ways.
Leadership has been heavily influenced by engineers that have been around since the beginning. Initially, they insisted on no structure, but then realized the lack of it was a problem and are now ramming it down our throats. A hierarchy was swiftly created with leads that have questionable experience or skill in leading large groups.
Don't reinvent the wheel in regards to engineering leadership.
Don't rely on employees whose only qualification is that they have been around since the beginning to know what they are doing in regards to growing a company to 10X scale.
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Canva Interview Questions
Canva Interview Experiences
Engineer
The typical long 5-stage interview process: * Initial * Programming - Do something, add more constraints, then add a feature (to test adaptability) * Programming * Algorithm - Figure out and implement an obscure math algorithm (too bad if yo
Engineer
A few "tell me what this line of code does" questions, kinda random and in the void. When I asked why such an academic test, the interviewer tried to justify it as "this is the way" and not really having a purpose. With this hiring method, I can im
Senior Software Engineer
The process went smoothly overall; the interviewers were very nice. However, they only hire for specific teams, so if you take too long to prepare, the position might already be filled and no longer open to new candidates.
Engineer
Sydney, AustraliaAugust 15, 2022The typical long 5-stage interview process: * Initial * Programming - Do something, add more constraints, then add a feature (to test adaptability) * Programming * Algorithm - Figure out and implement an obscure math algorithm (too bad if yo
Engineer
GermanyFebruary 17, 2020A few "tell me what this line of code does" questions, kinda random and in the void. When I asked why such an academic test, the interviewer tried to justify it as "this is the way" and not really having a purpose. With this hiring method, I can im
Senior Software Engineer
Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaNovember 13, 2025The process went smoothly overall; the interviewers were very nice. However, they only hire for specific teams, so if you take too long to prepare, the position might already be filled and no longer open to new candidates.
