Canva video pioneer Karolina Pawlikowska steps down after eight years shaping multimedia growth
Senior graphics engineer reflects on scaling video from experiment to feature used by millions.
Photo credit: Karolina Pawlikowska
Canva Senior Graphics Engineer Karolina Pawlikowska has announced she is leaving the company after eight years, marking the departure of one of the founding contributors to Canva’s video product as the platform continues to expand its multimedia tools.
Pawlikowska shared the update on LinkedIn, writing: “After 8 incredible years at Canva, I’ve decided to leave and move on to my next chapter.”
She joined Canva in early 2018 as an Android engineer and later became one of the founding members of the Canva Video product, contributing to the first native mobile video export capability. That initial project evolved into a cross-platform video organization now comprising more than 100 people.
From mobile experiment to global feature
Reflecting on her early work, Pawlikowska wrote: “A few months later, I pushed to join a bold experiment around video and wrote the first code that allowed a Canva design to export as a video natively on mobile.”
The video initiative expanded across web and mobile platforms, with Pawlikowska later serving as Engineering Manager before returning to an individual contributor path focused on graphics engineering. During her tenure, she led teams delivering features including Video Background Remover and worked on export systems, GPU-powered rendering, compositing, and performance optimization.
She wrote: “From a small video experiment to a feature used by nearly 40 million people every month (roughly the population of Poland!), from a startup that could fit everyone on the ground floor of our Surry Hills office to a global company of 5k+ Canvanauts, and from a bold dream to a comprehensive suite of products empowering creativity worldwide with over 300M monthly active users - I’m incredibly proud of what we built and grateful for the people I built it with.”
Engineering leadership and inclusion initiatives
Beyond product development, Pawlikowska led Canva Women Engineers for more than three years, growing the internal community from a small group to more than 200 members.
She wrote: “Outside of product work, running Canva Women Engineers for over 3 years - growing it from a few to over 200 members - has been one of the most meaningful parts of my time here.”
Her background spans video production systems on Android and Web, including low-level streaming protocols, GPU-powered export systems, compositing, post-processing, and machine learning-powered background removal. She most recently worked within Canva’s Multimedia group, driving tools and frameworks for graphics engineers within the Photo Effects team.
Video, AI, and platform scale
Canva’s video capabilities now form a core part of its broader creative suite, which reports more than 300 million monthly active users globally. Video editing, background removal, and visual effects have become central to how educators, marketers, and students create content across devices.
Pawlikowska indicated she plans to share details of her next move at a later date, writing: “I have some ambitious and exciting things ahead - I’ll share more when the time is right!”
Her departure reflects the evolution of Canva from a startup to a scaled global platform, with video now embedded as a standard creative workflow rather than an experimental add-on. As multimedia and AI-driven features continue to expand across EdTech and creative tools, leadership transitions in core engineering teams often signal the next phase of platform development.
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