Atlassian reviews

For more experienced folks and especially if you are mid-30s and later with a life outside of work/work colleagues, note that most senior roles/middle management seem to be taken by the folks who joined in the 2012-2014 timefame. Senior roles (principal, head of etc) seem to be few and far between for internal and external growth, and it may be difficult to succeed in these (see cliques below). Most things are done the "Atlassian way", which is a reason given to do things the same way every time. So if you have ideas or suggestions, perhaps from prior experiences, these are only accepted if they align exactly with how things are already done or if you have a sponsor who OKs them. New ideas and suggestions are mostly encouraged only if you've been around for a while and are in one of the cliques. So it's pretty collaborative if you have the same opinions and methods, may feel dismissive otherwise. I know folks who have left the company precisely because of this. Cliques: Other reviews mention "cronyism", "groupism" and "communism" :). These seem to be mostly informal networks dominated by folks hired in 2012-2014, and span SF/Austin/Sydney etc. These folks are pretty close to the long-time leaders. If you grew up in the company, you've paid your dues and you will get opportunities. If you grew up elsewhere, getting opportunities and getting in with the right cliques may be difficult and time-consuming. In fact multiple people across a variety of teams have gone through some pretty rough times when not in the right cliques. Also the compensation seems to be below market. And promotions seem to go to people who have been here for a while. If you are not a dog person or are allergic to dogs... you are in for a tough time. There are even off-leash dogs in the kitchen where people eat/handle food! There are processes in place for everything, using Jira and Jira Service Desk. Even the smallest request to another team has to go through a ticketing process. If you are from a much larger company, you are probably OK with this pace. If you came here thinking "modern startup", you may be frustrated by the pace. The company is very proud of its published values... but it seems folks have different interpretations. For example, "open company, no BS" - sometimes this seems to mean that things are transparent and open if you are in the right group. And there's "play, as a team" but then cliques come into play so interpret that as you would like.

- Sometimes it can seem as if we're moving at a glacial pace, other times we're moving way too fast. We need to find a good pace and stick with it. - A lot of the work done doesn't ship for various reasons. We pivot a lot and other times a bigger, more important project will come along which means the current work gets canned and the team transitions to a different project. - Atlassian has a tendency to tackle big projects all at once which means they can drag on for years. - Compared to the market average, Atlassian underpays. This is true for Sydney and the US. - We say "Open company, no bull#$%" but there's a lot of bureaucracy at the top. - If you don't have a good manager who will fight for you, you're going to struggle. This is especially important when it comes to performance reviews and interesting projects. - Atlassian favours extroverts. The only way to get yourself out there and known to senior management is by promoting your work and speaking at town halls or writing blog posts on the global Confluence instance. - Favourites get the interesting work. This is great if you're a favourite, but can be hard if you're an introvert and don't like promoting yourself or if you have a bad manager. - A lot of change over at the middle management level.