Canva is seeking a Head of Design Research to lead our Design Research team. You will be responsible for scaling research capabilities, shaping our product vision in the AI era, and ensuring high-quality user insights inform our strategy. This leadership role involves strategic planning, team development, and enabling product teams across Canva.
What You'll Do
- Lead, mentor, and grow the Design Research team, building research capability and fostering psychological safety.
- Craft and lead a design research strategy that informs product vision, company goals, and long-term opportunities in an AI era.
- Drive streams of work to find and fix user issues across Canva’s product surfaces by identifying and closing loops.
- Enable product teams to confidently conduct their own research through training, templates, and shared frameworks.
- Evolve the Design Research sub-specialty by strengthening methodologies, elevating craft standards, and integrating AI-assisted techniques.
- Set and maintain a quality bar for design research via hands-on research, coaching, training, processes, and oversight.
- Set direction for the group with clarity and confidence, defining priorities and navigating trade-offs across multiple teams.
- Lead communications to all relevant company goal stakeholders.
- Drive prioritisation so that this key resource is focused on the key priorities.
- Define and measure research success metrics.
- Define and manage the research tool ecosystem, including AI-enabled platforms.
What We're Looking For
- A seasoned leader with deep expertise across generative, evaluative, and mixed-methods research.
- Motivation from shaping product strategy, elevating research craft, and integrating emerging AI capabilities into meaningful practice.
- A skilled leader to ensure the team has the right strategy, quality bar, and delivery.
- Passion for using research to drive business and product strategy to delight our community.
- Strong stakeholder management and communications skills to partner with senior leaders and ICs across Product, Design, Engineering, and Data.
- A force multiplier to amplify the impact of research by unlocking Product teams across Canva to conduct their own research.
Nice to Have
- An AI research native, consistently learning and evolving skills as fast as the technology is unlocking capabilities.
Technical Stack
- AI-enabled platforms
Benefits & Compensation
- Equity packages
- 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
Work Mode
This is a hybrid role, open to candidates in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.
We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. We celebrate all types of skills and backgrounds.
