Job Description

About the Group

The Localisation group is responsible for the localisation of Canva’s product, marketing, and content as well as the tools, processes, and assets that make this possible. We sit within the International Supergroup but we work closely with stakeholders across the whole organisation. Our mission is to celebrate the diversity of our global users and make their interactions with Canva delightful by delivering a hyperlocalised experience.

About The Role

Every month, more than 100 million Canva users create a design in one of the 100 languages other than English, that Canva supports. The Localisation specialty is a small team of linguists, project managers, and engineers distributed throughout the company.

As a Japan Localisation Lead, you'll bring your cultural and Japanese linguistic knowledge to all aspects of localisation, ensuring our Japanese users have the best possible Canva experience.

You will be the voice of Japanese users and the champion for culturally relevant content.

What You’ll Do (responsibilities)

Identify key opportunities for localisation improvements in Japanese
Collaborate with local team on Product Growth initiatives
Evaluate and adapt global messaging and campaigns to resonate with Japanese users
Provide cultural insights and guidance to global teams
Partner with the Japanese Language Manager to develop language style guides, tone of voice strategies for Japanese, and localisation best practices

After 6 Months You Will Have

Established relationships with key stakeholders in the local team, marketing, product growth, content and localisation.
Created processes for communicating best practices and completing internal requests such as user flow audits and content reviews
Developed strategies for adapting global campaigns to the Japanese context as part of a wider localisation strategy for the market

Qualifications

What we're looking for

You understand the needs of Japanese customers and the opportunities to meet those needs effectively. We're open to candidates from a range of backgrounds, and valuable experience could include localisation or internationalisation work, content design for Japanese audiences, product growth in the Japanese market, or brand copywriting in Japanese. Previous experience working for a SaaS or technology company is also highly valued.
You're passionate about Japanese language and culture and you understand how these can impact local users' experience of a product. Above all else, you understand what speakers of Japanese need to be able to understand to use Canva. Your analytical mindset helps you evaluate campaign effectiveness and recommend data driven improvements for optimising Japanese user experiences.
You also love taking things from chaos to clarity — you’re a natural at understanding ambiguous, complex problems and communicating them simply to others. You also have the drive to see things through despite changes and setbacks. You’re equally comfortable discussing detail with engineers and ideas with product managers and designers. You’re great with tech (Atlassian project management tools, basic web development) and you write a mean doc.

Also, we’d love it if you had the following but it’s not a prerequisite!

Experience in marketing or advertising in the Japanese market
Knowledge of product growth strategies and user acquisition in Japan
You’ve got a tertiary education in linguistics, literature, or localisation
You have copy-writing experience — you maintain a blog or, even better, you have experience in localisation for a SaaS product
You showcase a solid understanding of organic growth (SEO and Wordpress)
You have some design experience
You’re an expert with CAT tools (experience with Smartling gets full marks)

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Japan Localisation Lead