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.