Leonardo.ai

Leonardo.ai is a Sydney-based generative AI platform that went from launch to 19M+ users and over 1 billion images in just 18 months. Canva acquired it in July 2024.

I joined as a Lead Engineer and spent most of my time scaling the API to keep up with the growth. The kind of problem where you're preparing for 10x while things are already on fire — fun stuff.

I also helped set up engineering standards, dev workflows, and documentation. When a team is growing that fast, you need that stuff in place or everything falls apart.

I was there before and after the Canva acquisition. The deal brought Leonardo's Phoenix model into Canva's Magic Studio suite.