Canva

Senior Research Engineer - Video Agents

San Francisco, CA, United States · Senior

Sponsorship not specified$220k-$280kDetected 54 days ago

PythonMachine LearningLLMsAgentic AICanvaVideo ProductionResearch

About the role

Your work will push the boundaries of what's possible in AI-driven storytelling, helping Canva users go from idea to finished video with tools that feel genuinely magical.
We sit between our generative research teams and the millions of creators who use Canva to tell stories every day.
Our job is to make video creation feel more like directing and less like editing.

Design the planning layer of our video agent: how it breaks a creative brief into a sequence of generation, editing, and asset decisions.
Build and evaluate tool-use behaviours: how the agent chooses among video models, editing primitives, retrieval over a creator's assets, and external services, and how we measure when it chose well.
Own context and memory for multi-turn video sessions, including long-running projects, brand context, and creator preferences.
Drive the evals flywheel. Build offline and online evaluations that capture narrative quality and intent satisfaction, not just model metrics.
Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

5+ years of ML research or research engineering experience, with a track record of shipping LLM-powered systems to production.
Experience with multimodal models, and a clear view of where they break inside larger systems.
Where and how you can work

Familiarity with diffusion and video generation models, as inputs to an agent rather than as a trainer.
Experience designing evals for LLM-powered products: LLM-as-judge, rubric-based eval, online quality metrics.
Open-source or published work in agent systems, multimodal reasoning, or video understanding.
What's in it for you?
Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too.
Here's a taste of what's on offer:
Check out lifeatcanva.com for more information.
Other stuff to know

Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
Health benefits plans to support you and your wellbeing
401(k) retirement plan with company contribution
Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally

Our Video Storytelling team builds the agentic systems behind Canva's video product.
We're hiring a Research Engineer to help define how Canva's video agents think, plan, and ship.
You'll work hands-on across the agent stack, from planning and tool orchestration to memory, evals, and shipping.
You'll partner closely with product, design, and our generative-models teams to turn research into reliable creator experiences.
The role is listed as hybrid, meaning we are incredibly flexible and empower you to work where you prefer - whether that's at home or at the office.

This listing is sourced directly from Canva's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.