Delivery Atlassian Previously, I worked as a back-end developer for a North American Internet company for three years. To be honest, Atlassian was not my initial goal, but a friend said: "The treatment they give is really nothing to say, and they are basically uninterested", which moved me. It took six weeks from submitting my resume to receiving the offer. This article records the pitfalls I encountered during the preparation process and the summary methods. I hope it will be useful to you who are preparing for the battle.
Atlassian SDE basic information
- Position: Software Development Engineer (SDE) — Backend, Sydney office
- Experience: 3 years of work experience
- Interview rounds: 4 rounds in total (1 round of HR preliminary screening + 1 round of technical phone interview + 2 rounds of Virtual Onsite)
- Total duration: about 6 weeks
- Result：Offer
Resume and submission
I suffered a loss when it came to my resume. The first version was submitted and there was no news. Later, I revised it again based on the JD before it was screened.
Atlassian pays more attention to these points:
- Experience should be quantified. Don’t write “responsible for XX system”. Write how much performance has been improved and how much volume it has supported.
- Write down the volume, QPS, user scale, etc. If you can.
- You must have experience in collaboration. They value how you cooperate with others, not just how strong your own skills are.
Tips: Use STAR format to sort out each experience. Interview behavioral questions can be reused directly, saving a lot of trouble.
Round 1: HR preliminary screening (30 minutes)
This round is more serious than I thought. HR is not just going through the motions, but is really talking about your understanding of Atlassian culture.
Some questions asked:
- Why do you want to come to Atlassian?
- What do you know about our products?
- How do you think you fit in with our Values?
Atlassian has five core Values. It is recommended to memorize them in advance and prepare corresponding real stories:
| Values | Core meaning |
|---|---|
| Open company, no bullshit | Transparent, direct, no detours |
| Build with heart and balance | Make products with heart and take into account life |
| Don’t #@!% the customer | Pay great attention to user experience |
| Play as a team | Collaboration first, collective victory |
| Be the change you seek | Proactively promote change without waiting |
My strategy is to pick two Values and talk about them based on my own real experience. Don’t memorize definitions. HR will know if you really understand them as soon as they hear them.
Round 2: Technical phone interview (60 minutes)
面试官是个 Senior Engineer，全英文，氛围还好，但节奏挺紧。
Algorithm Section (35 minutes)
A BFS variant of a graph, LeetCode medium difficulty. I first confirmed the boundary conditions, wrote a violent solution, and then optimized it.
Atlassian algorithm faces several rules:
- It doesn’t really matter whether you have memorized the question or not, it depends more on how you think.
- Will ask: Is there a more space-saving solution? What if the amount of data is 100 times larger?
- Write and talk at the same time, maintain communication, don’t just write in silence
High-frequency question tags that I prepared for the exam:Graph BFS/DFS Tree Sliding Window Design，LeetCode 刷了大概 80 道，重质量不重数量。
System Design Section (20 minutes)
There were no new questions this round. I just talked about the project structure on my resume and asked a few questions:
- How did you choose the database? Why not use another one?
- What if you want to change to support multi-tenancy?
- How to set up monitoring and alarm?
By the way, the topic of multi-tenancy is discussed in almost every round, because Atlassian itself is SaaS, which is their core issue, so be prepared in advance.
Round 3: Virtual Onsite (two games on the same day)
Each game is 60 minutes, with a 20-minute break in between, which is the most critical part.
3.1 System design
Topic: Design a simplified version of Jira.
This question is basically Atlassian's repertoire, and I have specially prepared it. My thinking framework is roughly this:
1. Confirm requirements
Functional requirements: Create/update/delete Issues, assignees, status transfer, comments, attachments
Non-functional requirements: high availability, million user level, low read latency
2. Estimate scale
DAU 1 million, each person performs 10 operations per day, and the total number of issues is about 1 billion
3. Data model
Issue(id, title, status, assignee_id, project_id, created_at)
Project/Comment/Activity Log
4. API design
GET /projects/{id}/issues
POST /issues
PATCH /issues/{id}
5. In-depth discussion
Issue state machine design
Notification system (Kafka asynchronous)
Search (Elasticsearch)
Comparison of multi-tenant isolation solutionsThe interviewer asked in-depth questions about multi-tenant isolation. I compared the pros and cons of Schema-per-tenant, Row-level isolation, and independent database solutions, and he was quite satisfied.
3.2 Behavioral interviewing
This round is more difficult than expected. It's not just going through the motions. The interviewer will keep asking for details, just to verify whether what you said is true.
Some questions asked:
- How do you resolve a disagreement with a colleague?
- Have you ever proactively pushed for a change that no one asked you to make?
- Have you ever made a decision that turned out to be wrong, and how did you deal with it?
- How do you deliver a project under tight time pressure?
A few points to note:
- Use STAR format, keep each story within 2 to 3 minutes, and leave time for follow-up questions.
- Say "I" instead of "we". As soon as the interviewer hears "we", he will ask "What exactly did you do?"
- The story must be true. If the details cannot withstand questioning, change them to another one.
Waiting and results
On the third day after the onsite, HR sent an email saying that it had entered the Reference Check stage, and another week later I received a verbal offer.
I only had one round of negotiation during the entire offer salary negotiation process, and the final result was about 12% higher than expected.
Tips for negotiating salary: Atlassian HR will generally proactively give a range. Don't rush to accept the first number. Politely say "I need a few days to think about it, and I hope to understand the flexibility of the salary." There is usually room for it.
To be honest, I can thank you for getting the offer smoothly this time.ProgramHelp Team help.
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