Canva Cuts 1,271 Jobs: How to Job-Hunt When AI Rewrote the Rules

Canva told 1,271 employees this week — 22% of the company — that they "will be impacted" by a restructure its CEO and cofounder Melanie Perkins has called a "refound." Some will leave, some will change roles, some will relocate. Canva hasn't published the split, and its internal note never names AI. Read that carefully. The driver doesn't need naming anymore.

Why the math has changed

The structural backdrop is stark. SpaceX bought AI coding startup Cursor for US$60 billion in August, and Fortune reported Cursor had more than 300 staff late last year. Canva, valued at US$42bn in August, employs about 5,800 people. Companies now reach valuations higher than Canva's with a fraction of the headcount. That arithmetic, not any single restructure, is what's reshaping where future tech jobs land.

The offset, according to Dexter Cousins, founder of executive search firm Tier One People: it has never been easier to start and scale a business. New companies reach revenue fast without VC funding to hire. And Tier One People is seeing an increase in briefs from banks this year looking for tech talent to drive AI transformation — established corporates are absorbing scaleup talent.

What an AI-native job actually demands

AI-native companies — built lean from day one — hire a select few and keep management layers thin. Nobody has one narrow job. Each person works across product, tech, sales, accounts and customer service. You'll rarely see a Chief AI Officer there, because every person uses AI.

In larger businesses like banks, the people who remain now work at a pace those organisations were never designed for. Many run three functions as one, with half the team. They deliver in days what large teams once delivered in months, without the committees and support structures their careers were built around.

How to run the search itself

The hard part of job hunting in 2026 is getting in front of people. Recruitment teams get bombarded with AI-generated applications, which they review with AI. The odds of your resume reaching the actual hiring manager are slim.

Cousins' framing: think of yourself as a product. Canva is considered world class in product, so its alumni carry real weight with employers — but that doesn't mean offers roll in unbidden. What big problem do you solve? Who is your target market? What value do you deliver? Then build a go-to-market strategy: who your ideal customers are, where they get information, who they trust.

He splits AI-assisted job hunters into two types:

• The Robot rewrites the same resume to match keywords in every ad and sends a thousand identical LinkedIn requests. It feels efficient. The recipient sees spam.
• The Terminator uses AI to research, draft and tighten a pitch aimed at a short, deliberately chosen list — then makes contact with a human touch.

Find the 5% who can genuinely help: former bosses and colleagues who now hire, and people with large networks. Cousins suggests the direct ask — "as someone I highly rate and whose opinion I trust, I wondered if you had two minutes to chat. I know you won't sugarcoat things." His motto: if you ask for a job, you'll get advice. If you ask for advice, you'll get a job.

Say yes before you say no

Don't hunt for the perfect job; hunt for problems to solve. Many people land perfect roles that were never advertised, created for them through conversations about challenges in their domain. Be open to fractional work, consulting, contracts or three-month projects. Each one gets you inside a business, building fresh work examples and expanding your network. The time to say no is when the job is actually offered.

One timing warning worth writing down: Tier One People has seen the average time to fill senior management and executive roles stretch from six weeks in 2021 to four months in 2026. If you haven't been on the market recently, that will shock you. Plant seeds now, Cousins says, and in 90 days you should see flowers bloom — whether you're staying at Canva or already gone.