29 February, 2024

How Canva’s Nurturing & Supportive Culture Changed The Course Of Jill Masters’ Life

It’s a truism that the best time to make a change was yesterday but Canva’s Jill Masters (pictured) has proven that any woman has the chance to alter their career trajectory with the opportunities offered by technology and companies like Canva.

Less than four years ago, Masters was working as a senior consultant for Nous Group in Canberra and freelancing for The Strategist UK, part of New York magazine. But, as with many, the COVID pandemic hit and Masters decided that it was time for a change.

“I learnt a lot in those jobs, but honestly, I was always restless, trying to find something I felt passionate about, chasing ‘flow’ state, and looking for a company with a mission that resonated,” she told WLT.

Remembering a colleague’s sage advice to learn to code after seeing her playing around with Excel and faced with spending lockdown in a “tiny bedroom” Masters decided to enroll in a free Python course on Coursera.

“I thought, why not? The course changed my life. I spent the rest of 2020 staying up all night learning. I didn’t imagine I’d become a developer, but I applied for a scholarship to a full-stack JavaScript bootcamp, and was lucky enough to get it,” she explained.

While the COVID pandemic was a difficult time for many, Masters was able to seize the opportunity presented by lockdown to learn a new skill. When her JavaScript bootcamp finished, she left her box room in London and returned to Australia. She applied for a job at Canva the same day.

Canva’s ascension from small startup to a multi-billion dollar company has been well-documented. Canva’s commitment to empowering its women engineers — or Canvanauts — and advancing their careers makes them stand out from many other tech firms. It’s why the firm is a longstanding supporter of the Women Leading Tech Awards and is sponsoring the Design category this year. Canva values and actively encourages staff to be tenacious in their work, hunting down compelling challenges for personal, team and company growth with an eye on being a force for good in the world.

Masters, with her globe-trotting and industry-straddling career, having spent time in Canberra, Sydney, London and Toronto, is one of the best exemplars of these values. So what’s her advice for women looking to change their career paths and enter the world of tech?

“Be audacious. In the past, I’ve emailed people at companies I admire with a pitch of the job I could do and what value I could bring. That’s how I got my first professional job as a research assistant, and how I started writing for New York Magazine’s The Strategist. You don’t have to be 100 per cent confident all of the time, but it helps to be bold,” she said.

Perhaps one of the most enduring features of a career in tech is its flexibility. Coding languages do not change regardless of whether you’re in New South Wales or New Mexico and nor do users’ demands on the tech they use.

“If you’re new to a city, and you don’t have a network, it can be hard to get noticed. I’d encourage you to try and stand out in some way, beyond just your CV — pitch an article, go to meetups, or reach out to an employee with a similar background to you. If you can secure that first interview, often the hardest work is behind you,” she explained.

That boldness and tenacity saw her bag a junior software engineer role at Canva — something that delighted Masters given she was a self-confessed Canva “fangirl” who started using the product back in 2015 to create posters for university events. Even once she started coding, she continued using its suite of products to create the branding for her first app.

“It helped that Canva’s based in my hometown, Sydney. But honestly, it was the product. I love our mission to empower everyone to design and I think Canva’s a genius solution to a real-world problem — for small business owners, students, enterprises, everyone,” she enthused.

In the three years she has been at Canva, she has grown her role and been rapidly promoted through the ranks, now working as a senior software engineer.

“I’ve had great opportunities at Canva. My coach [Canva’s term for a manager] Viv, and her coach, Mike, have nurtured an incredibly supportive culture. They brought me onto the team because they thought I had a unique skill set, and have given me so much freedom to use my skills creatively and continue to grow,” she said.

Part of her progression, she explained, was the compelling challenges the business deals with regularly and the “wickedly smart” people she was surrounded by.

“I’m growing as an engineer because I have access to world-class problem-solvers, and because I can see the decision-making that goes into engineering at scale,” she added.

“I have colleagues who approach problems from angles I never thought to consider which is a wonderful way to learn. It makes Canva a great place to not only discover my own biases and where I need to keep learning but also my superpowers.”

So what’s next for Masters and Canva? The company has a big year ahead with a potential IPO and office move on the cards. But Masters is focused on the job at hand.

“Now as a senior engineer, I’m focused on making lasting changes to the way our frontend engineers build UI and pay down ‘technical debt’ – essentially, getting everyone involved in spring cleaning our code, and embedding new standards. There’s so much opportunity to have a huge impact for our users and for the way we work. I’m excited to get stuck in,” she said.

If you could see yourself designing your career with Canva, check out its open roles.

Advertise with us

canva