Writer / Language Manager

✨ We’re hiring a Language Manager (Africa) at Canva Africa ✨

We're looking for a Language Manager to work closely with me and help shape Canva’s voice across the continent. This role blends language, culture, and product to make Canva feel truly local for users across Africa.

If you’re passionate about languages, understand users in South Africa, Kenya and/or Nigeria, and enjoy ownership in a fast-moving team, I’d love to hear from you. Strong South African languages and Swahili are a plus.

📍 Johannesburg | 🌍 Pan-African impact

Apply or message me if this sounds like you 👋

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Company Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Job Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Where and how you can work
Our headquarters is in sunny Sydney, Australia, but our team spans the globe. While we support flexible, remote-friendly ways of working, for this role we’re focusing on Johannesburg so we can best support our teams and keep collaboration flowing.

About the Role/Specialty
If you join our team as a Language Manager, you’ll bring your linguistic and cultural knowledge to all aspects of localisation, ensuring our international users have the best possible Canva experience. You’ll be the creative hub for all content in African languages and help advise on Canva’s branding in the continent.

What you’ll do

• Work with the Localisation Lead to create Canva’s voice across all parts of the Canva product in 19 African languages. 
• Translate key content and managing the relationship with our localisation vendor. 
• Develop/update style guides and glossaries
• Review and evaluate translations
• Provide cultural insights and guidance
• Identify key opportunities for localisation improvements 
• Review vendor translations 
• Assess and sourcing new LSPs
• Answer linguistic questions
• Triage results of scripted testing

After 6 months you will hav established relationships with key stakeholders in marketing, subscriptions, content and localisation that will allow you to deploy your local expertise. You’ll have created processes and channels for communicating best practices and completing internal requests such as copy-writing, content review, and translation guidelines.

What we're looking for
You’re passionate about languages and cultures and you understand how these can impact people’s experience of a product. You understand what our customers in South Africa, Kenya and/or Nigeria need in order to be able to understand and use our product. Canva is available in 19 African languages but we don't expect you to speak all of them but ideally you speak South African languages & Swahili.

We’re looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, with a strong bias towards action and ownership. The team in Africa (based in Johannesburg) is small and there will be lots of opportunities to contribute beyond the scope of this specific role, so we value energy and adaptability over specific experience or years of experience.

Also, we’d love it if you had the following but they’re not prerequisites!

• You have copy-writing experience — you maintain a blog or, even better, you have experience in localisation for a SaaS product
• You’re an expert with CAT tools (experience with Smartling gets full marks) and other tools in the marketing tech stack (Braze, Wordpress and of course Canva!)
• You showcase a solid understanding of organic growth (SEO)
• You have some design experience or familiarity with design tools
• You’ve got a tertiary education in linguistics, literature, or localisation

Other stuff to know
We make hiring decisions to engage contractors based on your experience, skills and passion. When you signify interest in the Project, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the contractor-accreditation interview process.

Please note that contractor-accreditation meetings are conducted virtually.

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.

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⚠️ Please DO NOT APPLY if you cannot demonstrate relevant experience in the key areas listed above or meet the location requirements. 

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