A Look into Early Talent at Canva

Our mission at Canva is to empower the world to design anything and publish anywhere — and it goes without saying we wouldn’t be able to do this without our incredible team across the globe. We’ve hired thousands of talented people around the world who play a critical role in our story, but an important part of this involves developing and nurturing emerging talent, many of whom have had a powerful impact on our journey to date.

As one of the world’s fastest-growing tech companies, we believe we have an important responsibility as well as a huge opportunity when it comes to building a diverse and inclusive future for those looking to pursue a career in tech (and hopefully at Canva)! We’re committed to creating opportunities for emerging talent by providing hands-on learning experiences through Early Talent programs like the Canva Launchpad and our Internship program.

Introducing the Canva Launchpad

This year, we introduced Canva Launchpad – a 12-month, full-time professional development program for career starters. Whether you’re fresh out of university, high school, or looking to make a change early on in your career, Launchpad is designed to lay the foundations for a successful, fulfilling, and exciting experience at Canva and beyond. The interns (more on that below) who are offered full-time roles following their internships return to Canva as part of the Launchpad program, where they have the opportunity to continue accelerating their growth and impact. In fact, we had 16 interns return as part of the program this year!

Alongside the Launchpad cohort, participants work on impactful projects, develop their networks, and build the foundations for an impactful career. Rather than making friends with a photocopier, Canva Launchpad involves a structured program that includes skills workshops, social events, and ‘Sit-Down’ events, where our Launchers get to showcase their work and learnings as part of the program. Throughout all of this, each Launcher is supported by a Coach and a Buddy who provide ongoing guidance, feedback and support.

Here’s what a few of our recent launchers had to say about the program.

Our Internship Program

At the start of every summer, Canva welcomes Australia and New Zealand's early career starters to work with us over a 12-week period. We also offer internship programs in Manila and Wuhan across various seasons for anywhere between 8 and 12 weeks.

Our Internship Program aims to empower the next generation of engineers and designers with tailored learning and development opportunities based on real-world scenarios. It’s a great opportunity to absorb knowledge, get out of your comfort zone, and experience as much #CanvaLife as possible! Interns within the program are soon-to-be graduates who work with us in a full-time capacity for the duration of the internship to get the most out of their time with us. We currently offer internships across Software Engineering, Data Science, Data Analytics and UX Design, so if you’re currently looking to gain some valuable experience, our applications for 2023 are still open.

Interns at Canva

We’re proud to be partnering with more university societies and groups around Australia and New Zealand than ever before, helping us engage with early career starters and provide information about the opportunities available at Canva. From Monash Women in IT and Sydney University Experience Designers (SUEDE) in Australia, to Uni Auckland Women in Business and Developers Society in New Zealand, our partners are representative of the diversity of multicultural Australia, which is an important part of achieving our ongoing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals.

So, what exactly does an internship at Canva involve? Well, a few things:

Learning from industry leaders

A huge focus at Canva (and one of our core values) is to empower others. When our interns join the team, they’re partnered with tenured Canvanauts who act as a mentor throughout the internship program to ensure each of our interns are set up for success and have dedicated support every step of the way.

Empowering our 80M+ monthly active users

At Canva, creating the technology behind our platform is only half of the equation. The other half is the millions of stories about the way this technology is being used across the globe — whether it’s helping someone build a business, land a new job, or raise funds for a nonprofit. Our interns are assigned real-world projects based on the problems we’re trying to solve, or the features we’re working on building — and some cases, they return as graduates and launch their projects out into the world.

Living our values

Our internship program is designed to provide each intern with the context and understanding behind the values that are at the heart of everything we do. They’re given the opportunity to demonstrate these throughout their journey, whether it's pursuing excellence in completing their internship projects and final project presentations to the broader team at Canva, or being a force for good by participating in our many volunteering opportunities.

Our values

We’re only just getting started in this space, and we’re looking forward to building both our Launchpad and Internship programs across more of our hubs over the months and years to come.

If you’re ready to jump into a permanent position, our Launchpad is designed for you! Applications for our 2023 February Graduate Software Engineer cohort will open in July so check back then.

Applications for the Australian 2023 Internship Program are currently open, and close in June. Last year, we had more than 60 interns join us for 3 months of tailored learning (including 11 from New Zealand)!

We know the future of work is constantly evolving – we have a number of coworking spaces around the world and we’re always open to supporting relocations. If you have any questions or you’d like to chat with the team to learn more, please reach out to talent-programs@canva.com.