6.00 AM
My alarm goes off. Normally I’d sleep in a bit longer, but this morning I’ll be heading to the Canva gym to start my day. I get ready, and I catch the train to work.
7.30 AM
I arrived at the Canva office! We’re lucky to have a gym and showers at work which saves me so much time. I do a quick workout, and once I’m done, I hop into one of the showers and get ready for work.
8.30 AM
I go upstairs to the Canva cafe where I grab myself some breakfast. I usually like to take breakfast time as an opportunity to sit down and have a chat with people from other teams or people I don’t know very well and make some new friends.
9.00 AM
I head to my desk. Usually, I like to dedicate the first hour of my day reading emails and doing code reviews. A code review involves proofreading and sometimes testing another engineer's code before it gets included in Canva’s codebase. A few of my teammates have sent me code they like me to review, so I spend some time going over it and leaving feedback and comments on things they can address.
10.00 AM
I’ve cleared up my inbox and finished reviewing my teammates code. It’s time for me to dig into writing some code!
I work with Canva’s Presentations team where we work on features that help users make awesome presentations in Canva. One of my favorite things is working on features I know users will love!
I open my text editor, start up the local server, and start coding away on a new feature.
11.30 AM
I get a calendar notification - it’s time for my one-on-one with my coach. Every employee at Canva has a coach, and these catch-ups occur fortnightly. This is a great chance for me to chat about how I’m feeling about my work, share feedback, and discuss ways that I can grow in my career in Canva. We sometimes go for a coffee walk or sit in a meeting room. Today we went downstairs to the cafe area and had a chat.
12.00 PM
My coach and I wrap up our one-on-one, and it’s 12:00 which means it’s lunch time! After lunch, my team likes to go for a coffee walk. Our office is in Surry Hills, and we have plenty of trendy cafes to choose from. Sometimes we also go to Messina for ice cream! Today we went to one of my favorite cafes, Sample.
1.00 PM
I get back to my desk where I have two hours before the next meeting in my calendar so it’s a great opportunity to have some focused programming time.
With the feature I’m working on, I come across a bug, which is technically challenging. I’m not sure what’s the best way to approach it. I turn around to my colleague and explain the problem to her to see if she can give me a hand. We decide to jump into a meeting room to have a brainstorming session.
3.00 PM
Since it’s Friday, we have “Show and Tell”. Everyone gathers in a room to share little demos of what we’ve been working on. It’s really exciting to see sneak peeks of the latest upcoming project.
5.00 PM
Every Friday we celebrate the end of another great week and hang out for after-work drinks! We head back down to the cafe area, grab a drink, and chat about the weekend.
6.30 PM
After having a great time chatting with the team, I head out to go home. It’s been a fun and productive day, and I’m looking forward to the weekend to rest and recharge!