Dutch Language Manager (12 month contract)
Key Skills
Job Description
Job Description
Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.
Hey, g'day, hallo, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, 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
While we support flexible ways of working, for this role it would be great to have someone who can join in a hybrid capacity in our Amsterdam office, so we can best support our teams and keep collaboration flowing. We have an amazing new hub at the Herengracht for our growing team.
Please note: While this is a 12 month contract, there is flexibility in weekly hours to accommodate other freelance work.
About the role/speciality
Every month, more than 180 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. Our mission is to celebrate the diversity of our global users and make their experience delightful by delivering a hyperlocalised experience.
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 Dutch and help advise on Canva’s branding in that market.
What you’ll be doing
- Shape Canva’s voice across all parts of the product in Dutch
- Translate and adapt key content for Dutch-speaking users
- Manage relationships with localisation vendors and language partners
- Develop and maintain Dutch style guides, glossaries, and localisation best practices
- Review and evaluate translation quality across product and marketing surfaces
- Identify opportunities to improve localisation quality and user experience
- Answer linguistic and cultural questions from stakeholders across Canva
- Support QA processes and triage localisation bugs and testing results
What we’re looking for
You’re passionate about language, culture, and creating experiences that feel natural and intuitive for Dutch users. You have strong writing instincts and know how to adapt tone depending on context, audience, and platform.
You thrive in ambiguous environments and enjoy taking things from chaos to clarity. You’re proactive, collaborative, and comfortable working across multiple teams and stakeholders. You’re equally comfortable discussing details with engineers and ideas with marketers, designers, and product managers.
You also bring:
- Experience working in localisation, internationalisation, content, or language management roles
- Strong understanding of Dutch language and cultural nuance
- Experience reviewing localisation quality across different surfaces
- Familiarity with CAT tools and localisation workflows
- Strong communication and stakeholder management skills
- Comfort working with data, feedback, and user insights to improve quality
- Experience working in SaaS, product, or tech environments is highly valued
Also, we’d love it if you had the following, but it’s not a prerequisite!
- Experience as a Language Lead at an LSP or software company
- Experience with Smartling or similar CAT tools
- Copywriting or transcreation experience
- Understanding of SEO and organic growth
- Design experience or strong visual instincts
- Experience working with AI-assisted localisation workflows
- Tertiary education in linguistics, literature, localisation, or related fields
Other stuff to know
Please submit your application & resume in English.
We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.
Please note that interviews are predominantly conducted virtually.
We celebrate all types of skills and backgrounds at Canva so even if you don’t feel like your skills quite match what’s listed above - we still want to hear from you!
Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.
Core Responsibilities
The Language Manager will shape Canva's Dutch voice by translating and adapting key content while managing localisation vendors. They will develop style guides and ensure high translation quality across product and marketing surfaces.
Requirements
Candidates should have experience in localisation or language management within a tech or SaaS environment and a strong command of Dutch cultural nuances. Proficiency with CAT tools and the ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams are essential.
About Canva
Industry: Software Development
Company size: 1,001-5,000 employees
We're a global online visual communications platform on a mission to empower the world to design. Featuring a simple drag-and-drop user interface and a vast range of templates ranging from presentations, documents, websites, social media graphics, posters, apparel to videos, plus a huge library of fonts, stock photography, illustrations, video footage, and audio clips, anyone can take an idea and create something beautiful on Canva on any device, from anywhere in the world. Since our launch in 2013, we’ve had the crazy big goal of making design accessible to everyone. We were founded on the belief that people shouldn't need to understand complex software to unlock their creativity. We’re leveling the playing field and democratizing access to design and visual communication by empowering 100% of the world to communicate in a way that was once limited to the 1%. We've always had a deeper mission surrounding Canva — which we talk about as our 'simple' two-step plan: to build one of the world’s most valuable companies, and to do the most good we possibly can. We're committed to our core value of Being a Force for Good, so as the value of our company grows, so too does our ability to have a positive impact on the world.