AI Visual Design Lead

About the Role/Specialty

We are seeking a senior AI-Native Visual Design Lead to elevate the visual craft and design quality of Canva’s AI-generated outputs.

This role is first and foremost a design leadership position. You will define, raise, and operationalise Canva’s visual quality bar across generative image, layout, typography, and multimodal outputs — ensuring our AI feels premium, globally relevant, and creatively empowering.

While you will partner closely with Research and ML teams, your primary mandate is to lead from a design perspective: setting aesthetic standards, coaching evaluators, and translating high-level craft into scalable quality systems.

What you’ll do (responsibilities)

• Define and elevate Canva’s visual quality bar for AI-generated outputs across typography, layout, composition, and colour.
• Critically review generative outputs and drive improvements toward premium, production-level craft.
• Lead and coach a team of AI visual evaluators and designers to strengthen design judgment and consistency.
• Translate visual design feedback into structured, actionable insights for ML and research teams.
• Partner with engineers to improve layout behaviour, typographic logic, and visual coherence in models.
• Establish clear visual evaluation principles grounded in design systems and productivity use cases.
• Ensure AI outputs align with global brand standards and culturally diverse aesthetics.
• Build scalable quality review processes without compromising creative excellence.
• Represent the China team in global discussions on AI visual quality and design standards.

What we're looking for

• 7+ years of professional visual design experience, with strong graphic design craft
• Demonstrated ability to critique and elevate visual outputs at a premium level.
• Hands-on experience with generative AI tools (e.g. SD, ComfyUI, image/video models, LLM workflows).
• Ability to push AI tools beyond basic outputs toward production-quality results.
• Experience working within structured design systems or scalable content environments.
• Proven leadership or mentoring experience in creative teams.
• Strong written English communication skills for global collaboration.
• Comfortable partnering with engineering and research teams in cross-functional environments.