Company Description
Job Description
About the Team
At Canva, we create tools that empower the world to design. Our mission is to democratize design and empower creativity for anyone and everyone, on every platform. Since launching in August 2013, Canva has grown exponentially—we're one of the world's fastest-growing startups, and the journey has only just begun.
International is becoming Canva's biggest growth driver in 2026 and beyond. To reach our foundational goal of having 1 in 5 internet users use Canva every month, we're shifting from translating English successes to implementing truly local strategies that resonate with and convert local audiences.
The SEO group spans the globe with keyword researchers, technical SEO specialists, content specialists, copywriters, engineers, data analysts, designers, and operations specialists.
As i18n Technical SEO Lead, you'll sit at the intersection of craft, coaching, and cross-functional influence. You'll be part of the Logged Out Experience (LOX) Group and the International SEO team, embedded within our senior i18n SEO leadership, with strong alignment to Central (EN) Technical SEO.
About the Role
You are the owner of i18n technical SEO craft at Canva — defining standards, building playbooks, coaching specialists, and advising Country Leads on the technical decisions that shape international growth.
You'll directly manage and coach a globally distributed team of Technical SEO Specialists, ensuring consistent, high-quality technical execution across all priority markets. You'll serve as the primary technical SEO partner to SEO Country Leads globally — the person they turn to when a technical question is too complex, too cross-functional, or too consequential to handle alone.
You'll also own the relationship between i18n Technical SEO and Canva's Central (EN) Technical SEO team — translating global standards into i18n requirements, surfacing i18n-specific challenges upstream, and ensuring the two functions operate as one coherent technical engine.
You'll be supported by a global network of experts — Regional SEO Leads, Technical SEOs, Product Managers, and Content Specialists — and have access to Canva's proprietary SEO platforms and best-in-class third-party tools. You'll also work closely with a senior international SEO lead who provides technical capability leadership, alignment, and support across markets.
**What you’ll do **
i18n Technical SEO Craft Leadership
Own the standards, frameworks, and playbooks that define how technical SEO is done across all international markets at Canva
Define what "technically excellent" means for i18n pages — and build the documentation, processes, and quality controls to make that standard repeatable
Identify systemic technical opportunities and risks across markets, and drive resolution with the right stakeholders
Stay at the leading edge of technical SEO craft — including AI-era considerations — and translate emerging best practices into i18n-specific guidance
Serve as the escalation point for complex technical issues that exceed specialist scope or require cross-functional coordination
Team Building & Capability Development
Directly coach and develop a globally distributed team of Technical SEO Specialists, owning their day-to-day technical guidance, feedback cadence, and growth trajectory
Define clear expectations, development goals, and skill benchmarks for each specialist
Build a coaching culture that emphasises ownership, craft curiosity, and transparent communication — consistent with Canva's A-Player standard
Create structured learning pathways, working sessions, and documentation that accelerate capability over time
Reduce your own involvement in routine execution as specialists grow — your goal is a team that raises the bar independently
Advisory to SEO Country Leads
Serve as the go-to technical SEO partner for SEO Country Leads across all priority markets — advising on technical strategy, diagnosing issues, and identifying opportunities they may not have the bandwidth to surface themselves
Translate complex technical findings into clear, prioritised recommendations that Country Leads can act on and communicate to their stakeholders
Contribute technical depth to Country Lead opportunity assessments, roadmaps, and strategic proposals — ensuring technical foundations are factored into market strategy from day one
Proactively surface cross-market technical patterns to Country Leads — helping them learn from what's working (or not working) in comparable markets
Central EN Technical SEO Alignment
- Own the relationship between i18n Technical SEO and Canva's Central (EN) Technical SEO team — ensuring i18n requirements are understood, represented, and addressed in global platform decisions
- Translate EN technical standards into i18n-specific implementation guidance, accounting for multilingual architecture, locale targeting, and market-specific platform dynamics
- Surface i18n edge cases, gaps, and requirements upstream to the Central team before they become systemic issues
- Ensure that i18n and EN technical SEO operate as one coherent engine, not parallel functions
Core Technical SEO Execution & Governance
- Maintain deep hands-on expertise across all core technical SEO pillars: hreflang and locale targeting, crawlability and indexation, site architecture, structured data, Core Web Vitals, and mobile optimisation
- Lead governance and quality control for hreflang implementation across 40+ locales — the most complex and consequential technical i18n challenge
- Conduct and oversee technical audits across international pages, prioritising findings by market impact and execution complexity
- Build and own a reliable issue management system — standardised tickets that clearly communicate potential impact, enable dependency teams to understand trade-offs, and facilitate prioritisation and decision-making across stakeholders
- Build trust and influence with key stakeholders across LOX Product, Engineering, and Data teams, as well as International Product, Engineering, Localisation, and Data Leadership — removing blockers and accelerating truly local-first initiatives
- Collaborate with engineering and i18n platform teams on technical changes — providing clear, well-scoped requirements and validating outcomes post-implementation
- Maintain clear documentation of technical SEO health, issue resolution, and implementation outcomes across markets
GEO / AEO & Emerging Discovery
- Own i18n technical SEO's response to the evolution of AI-powered search and discovery — including GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
- Assess how AI Overviews, LLM-powered search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude), and other emerging discovery surfaces are behaving differently across international markets
- Define technical best practices for AI discoverability in an i18n context: structured data for LLMs, content formatting for AI-generated answers, entity clarity across locales
- Build this capability into the i18n Technical SEO Playbook so that Country Leads and specialists can apply GEO/AEO thinking without needing to reinvent it in each market
- Share cross-market observations and experiments with Central SEO and International leadership to inform Canva's global approach to emerging discovery channels
Performance Monitoring & Reporting
- Develop and maintain a transparent measurement framework for i18n technical SEO health — covering all priority markets with clear KPIs aligned to Country and Central SEO goals
- Monitor performance following technical changes and ensure outcomes are validated and communicated clearly
- Report proactively to your coach and relevant stakeholders — sharing not just results but learnings, blockers, and recommended pivots
- Surface systemic issues early, before they compound across markets
Building a Team and Methodology That Outlasts Individuals
- Build systems, playbooks, and ways of working that are owned by the team — not dependent on any single person. Your goal is a technical SEO function that self-improves over time and doesn't stall when individuals move on
- Document decisions, standards, and learnings in a way that makes institutional knowledge transferable — ensuring continuity across team changes, market expansions, and organisational evolution
- Develop specialists to the point where they can independently uphold and evolve the standards you've set — not just execute against them
- Measure your success not only by what you personally deliver, but by what the team and methodology continue to deliver without you
What we're looking for
Technical SEO Mastery
- Demonstrated expertise across all three pillars of technical SEO: crawlability and indexation, site architecture, and structured data — with a track record of high-impact delivery on large-scale websites (1,000+ pages)
- Deep specialisation in international technical SEO: hreflang implementation and governance, multilingual site architecture, locale targeting, and i18n-specific indexation challenges
- Experience diagnosing and resolving complex technical issues — not just identifying them — including JS rendering issues, crawl budget inefficiencies, structured data errors, and Core Web Vitals failures
- Proficiency with the full technical SEO toolset: Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Botify, Lumar (DeepCrawl), Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and equivalent platforms
Required Experience
- Experience with large-scale database-driven or UGC platforms (marketplace pages, template libraries, user-generated content at scale)
- Experience with automation, internal tooling, or AI-assisted technical SEO workflows
- Familiarity with engineering collaboration at scale: ability to scope, brief, and validate technical changes on complex, programmatically generated page sets
- Prior experience in a craft leadership or principal IC role within a global SEO team
Strategic & Advisory Capability
- Proven ability to translate technical SEO complexity into clear, prioritised, business-relevant recommendations — for both SEO specialists and non-SEO stakeholders
- Experience contributing technical depth to broader SEO strategy: not just fixing issues, but identifying the technical foundations that unlock strategic growth
- Comfortable operating as an internal consultant — advising Country Leads and other senior stakeholders who have context you don't, and earning trust through expertise and clarity
- Ability to assess trade-offs, make prioritisation calls, and explain reasoning transparently — especially when resources are constrained
Coaching & People Development
- Experience coaching or mentoring technical SEO practitioners — with evidence of improved output quality and growing independence over time
- Ability to give direct, constructive feedback and hold high standards without micromanaging
- Patience and clarity in building capability: creating documentation, running working sessions, and designing learning experiences that accelerate growth
- Genuine ownership of others' development — not just task delegation
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Strong track record of working effectively with engineering, product, and platform teams — translating SEO requirements into implementation-ready briefs
- Experience operating in a global, multi-stakeholder environment where influence matters more than authority
- Clear, proactive communicator who keeps all relevant parties informed without over-escalating or under-communicating
GEO / AEO & Future-Oriented Mindset
- Active understanding of how AI-powered search and discovery is evolving — including how tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude are reshaping how users find information
- Practical knowledge of GEO and AEO techniques: structured data optimisation for LLM citation, content formatting for AI-generated answers, entity establishment across locales
- Curiosity about how these dynamics play out differently across international markets — and willingness to experiment, document, and share findings
- Channel-agnostic thinking: understands that "technical SEO" increasingly means "technical discoverability" — across search engines, AI tools, and platforms yet to emerge
Ownership Mindset
- You act like it's your craft, your team, and your markets — not just your job
- You set the standard, don't wait for it to be set for you
- You identify problems before they become crises, and you bring solutions not just observations
- You build things that outlast you: playbooks, processes, and capabilities that continue working when you're not in the room
Nice-to-Haves
- Familiarity with multi-platform search ecosystems beyond Google (Bing, Naver, Yahoo, Baidu, etc)
- Background working across international markets
What You'll Learn and How You'll Develop
- Build and own the i18n Technical SEO craft function at one of the world's fastest-growing companies
- Develop deep coaching and leadership capabilities through direct management of a globally distributed specialist team
- Shape how Canva approaches technical discoverability in the AI era — contributing to a global SEO transformation in real time
- Partner closely with some of the world's top in-house SEO leads as your direct coaches and collaborators
- Gain cross-functional influence across Engineering, Product, Templates, and Data at global scale
- Establish yourself as a recognised authority in i18n technical SEO — with the scope, visibility, and impact to match