just finished my Canva frontend engineer interview loop last month. sharing this because i couldn't find a lot of up-to-date stuff when i was prepping, so maybe this helps someone.
for context: i was applying for a senior frontend role, 4 YOE at the time, based in the US (they do remote for this role but the team is Sydney-heavy so there's some timezone overlap required).
the full loop was 5 rounds: recruiter screen (30 min, pretty standard, mostly 'tell me about yourself' and logistics) technical phone screen (45 min, live coding in a shared editor. they gave me a React component problem, nothing wild, but they wanted me to think out loud about performance and accessibility) front-end systems design (60 min, design a rich text editor or collaborative canvas-like surface. yes, very on-brand. this is where a lot of people get caught off guard) behavioral / values panel (45 min, two interviewers, heavy on the Canva values: 'be a force for good', 'make complex things simple', stuff like that) team fit / hiring manager chat (30 min)
the systems design for frontend was the hardest part for me. they're not asking you to design a backend service. they want to know how you think about DOM performance, rendering pipelines, state management at scale, real-time collaboration via WebSockets, conflict resolution (like operational transforms or CRDTs at a high level). you don't have to implement CRDTs, but you should know what they are and why Canva would care.
the coding rounds were TypeScript-first. they noticed immediately when i reached for a plain JS pattern. make sure you're fluent in TS generics, not just the basics.
behavioral questions leaned toward: tell me about a time you made a product decision as an engineer (they blur eng and product thinking), how you handled a cross-functional disagreement, times you improved performance or DX meaningfully.
comp: my offer was around $195k base + equity for senior level, US remote. i've seen ranges vary a lot depending on leveling so take that as one data point.
total timeline was about 6 weeks from first recruiter contact to offer. debrief was fast, i heard back within 4 days of the final round.
happy to answer questions on the systems design round specifically, that's the one with the least info online.