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CanvaSenior Research Scientist - Design Generation (Sydney)
Canva is hiring a Senior Research Scientist for its Design Generation team in Sydney. The group belongs to Canva Research and the company's Generative AI supergroup.…
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About This Role
Canva is hiring a Senior Research Scientist for its Design Generation team in Sydney. The group belongs to Canva Research and the company's Generative AI supergroup. Its purpose is to develop the generative models and methods that power design creation with AI, used by hundreds of millions of people. The scientist trains and assesses design generation models, including large language models, and works on the datasets, training goals and evaluation…
Job Description
Canva is hiring a Senior Research Scientist for its Design Generation team in Sydney. The group belongs to Canva Research and the company's Generative AI supergroup. Its purpose is to develop the generative models and methods that power design creation with AI, used by hundreds of millions of people.
The scientist trains and assesses design generation models, including large language models, and works on the datasets, training goals and evaluation methods that shape design quality. Typical tasks include planning experiments on architecture, training strategy and data, building measures that reflect what users value, and investigating where models fail or fall short of user and business needs. Promising work is carried into production with product colleagues, whose features reach more than 250 million users.
Senior scientists take a scoped research question from framing through to a validated result or a shipped feature. The role asks for hands-on experience training generative systems at scale, adapting large language and multimodal networks in an industrial setting, and managing big data pipelines and multi-accelerator training runs. Experience with diffusion or image generation is welcome though not mandatory, and explaining findings clearly to non-researchers is expected.
Responsibilities
- Train and evaluate LLM-based design generators, from data preparation through to training objectives
- Plan and run experiments on architecture, training strategy and data inputs
- Create evaluation methods and benchmarks for quality in generated designs
- Convert research results into methods the group can take into production
- Diagnose model quality problems and failure patterns relative to user and business needs
- Follow generative modelling research and bring useful advances into the team
- Make results and compromises understandable, including for colleagues outside research
Requirements
- Practical experience training generative models rather than only running pretrained checkpoints
- Skill in defining and sharpening measures of generative output, rather than chasing leaderboard numbers
- Record of taking a loosely defined research question to a validated result with little supervision
- Proven ability to adapt large language and multimodal networks at production scale
- Experience with large data pipelines, new training objectives and training across multiple GPUs
- A doctorate in artificial intelligence, machine learning or an adjacent field plus two years of industry work, or six years in industry without one
Qualifications
- Diffusion or image-generation background, a bonus rather than a requirement
Core Skills
Benefits
- Equity
- Parental leave policy covering all parents and carers
- Yearly Vibe and Thrive allowance covering wellbeing, social activities and home-office setup
- Flexible leave options
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
Where is the role based?
The job title names Sydney, and the listing marks the role on-site.
What degree is required?
The posting asks for a doctorate in artificial intelligence, machine learning or an adjacent field plus two years of industry work. Without a doctorate, six years in industry are needed.
Is diffusion experience required?
No. Diffusion or image-generation background is described only as a bonus.
Is a salary stated?
The posting does not state a salary.
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