What makes Atlassian interviews different

Atlassian is an Australian software company that makes tools for teams, such as Jira and Confluence. It says its five values guide what it does and who it hires.

So prepare for the values interview as carefully as you prepare for the skills questions. Have stories where you helped the people around you do better work, as well as stories about your own results. The team stories fit the value "Play, as a team", described below.

Atlassian is also a distributed company. Under its Team Anywhere approach most Atlassians choose where they work, and Atlassian runs its intern and graduate interviews virtually. Its guide suggests checking your setup beforehand and joining five to ten minutes early.

Atlassian's mission

Atlassian's company page gives its mission as "to help unleash the potential of every team through open work." If you're asked why you want to work there, you can link your answer to it, but put it in your own words, and only if you actually care about it.

The five Atlassian values and what they mean in an interview

Atlassian says these values have stayed the same as the company has grown. Learn the names, then think about what each one looks like in something you've actually done.

Value 01
Open company, no bullshit
What Atlassian says
Information inside Atlassian is open by default, and speaking your mind is encouraged, with thought about what to say, when to say it and how.
How to show it
Be straight about failure and disagreement. If you made a mistake on a project, say so and explain what you changed. If you disagreed with a decision and spoke up, say what you said and how. Atlassian's interview guide says you don't have to pick only stories that went well, as long as you can say what you learned from them. Expect follow-up questions if a story sounds too tidy.
Value 02
Build with heart and balance
What Atlassian says
Atlassian sums it up as "Measure twice, cut once": bring passion and urgency to the work, but weigh up the options with care before you commit.
How to show it
Show that you care about the quality of what you make, as well as getting it done. A good example is a time you were under pressure to move fast, stopped to weigh up the options, and then committed to one. Say how you weighed it up, as well as how hard you worked.
Value 03
Don't #@!% the customer
What Atlassian says
Atlassian calls customers its lifeblood, and says the customer's point of view comes first: customers as a whole, rather than a handful of them.
How to show it
Think of a time you stood up for a customer or end user when it would have been easier to look away, or thought about who your work would affect after you'd handed it over. Spotting a problem for customers that nobody else had noticed, and raising it, makes a good example.
Value 04
Play, as a team
What Atlassian says
Atlassian says it tries to put what's right for the team first, and to be serious about the work without taking itself too seriously.
How to show it
Pick stories where the group did better because of something you did: you shared what you knew, took on extra work to help a stuck teammate, let someone else take the credit, or changed your approach because it suited the group. "I picked up part of a teammate's work when they were stuck" says more about this value than "I delivered my part on time".
Value 05
Be the change you seek
What Atlassian says
Atlassian wants everyone there to have the courage to start change. It calls improvement a shared responsibility, and acting on it an individual one.
How to show it
Have an example of a time you noticed something broken or clumsy and fixed it without being asked. It can be small, as long as it's specific. Saying "I believe in taking initiative" doesn't answer the question, so tell them about a time you did.

The Atlassian interview process

Atlassian's early careers interview guide describes these steps for intern and graduate roles. The details depend on the role and the region:

1
Application
Apply online with a CV written for the role. Atlassian's guide suggests one to two pages, most recent experience first, with your graduation date on it. An early careers recruiter reviews applications and contacts you about next steps.
2
Initial assessment
A test matched to the role, usually with a time limit: an online coding test for software engineering, for example, or a take-home case study for product management. You need to pass it to get to the interviews.
3
Craft interviews
The interview loop is three to four interviews, and your recruiter guides you through it. Craft interviews cover the skills the role needs, technical or functional. Atlassian suggests practising on a whiteboard or on online practice platforms for these.
4
Leadership and values interviews
The leadership interview asks how you approach your part in a team, and the values interview asks how your thinking and actions line up with Atlassian's values. Both use behavioural and situational questions. The guide doesn't say what order the interviews come in. It does suggest bringing your own questions for the interviewers.
Team stories still need "I"

Stories about teamwork can slip into "we did this, then we did that". Say what the team achieved, but make clear which part was yours, so the interviewer can tell what you did.

Stories to have ready

Atlassian's guide suggests preparing a range of examples and telling them with the STAR method. Between them, your stories should cover:

  • Working across teams: with people whose jobs, priorities or time zones were different from yours
  • Thinking of the customer: considering the people who'd use your work before you decided something
  • Learning from feedback or failure: what you heard or what went wrong, and what you changed afterwards
  • Initiative: something you started or fixed without being asked, and saw through
  • Clear communication: including in writing, since Atlassian puts weight on asynchronous communication

Practise your answers out loud

There's no single right answer to a question about your own experience, so practise telling your stories until they come easily. InterviewZap asks you behavioural questions written from your CV and the job description you add, follows up on what you say, and after each answer shows you what was missing.

Start Practising Free →

No credit card. Free to start.

Ten Atlassian interview questions to practise

Use the STAR method for the behavioural ones. These are questions like the ones you might be asked, each matched to the value it fits best.

Questions 1–10 · Atlassian practice questions
Question 01
"Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision your team or manager made. What did you do?"
Value it fits
Open company, no bullshit: saying what you thought, with care, instead of going along quietly.
How to answer it
Pick a real disagreement about something important, not a small difference in taste. Say what you believed, how you raised it, and what you did if the decision went the other way. A good answer shows you made your case clearly, then backed the team's decision once it was made, whether or not you won the argument.
Question 02
"Describe a time you made a mistake that had real consequences. How did you handle it?"
Value it fits
Open company, no bullshit: being as honest about your own mistakes as about anything else.
How to answer it
Choose a mistake that caused a real problem, rather than a cosmetic one. Say what went wrong, what your part in it was, how you dealt with it at the time and what you've done differently since. Own it plainly, without long explanations or blaming anyone else, and without being too hard on yourself either.
Question 03
"Tell me about a time you went out of your way to help a teammate who was struggling."
Value it fits
Play, as a team: helping other people succeed, as well as doing your own work well.
How to answer it
Choose a time you noticed a teammate was having trouble and helped without being asked. Say what you noticed, what you did, and how it turned out for them and for the team. Show how helping them helped the team's work, as well as being a kind thing to do.
Question 04
"Describe a time you identified something broken or inefficient and fixed it without being asked."
Value it fits
Be the change you seek: fixing something yourself instead of waiting for someone else to.
How to answer it
Describe what you noticed, why it was a problem and what you did about it. Then say what changed afterwards, and whether the fix lasted. Make it clear that nobody asked you to do it.
Question 05
"Tell me about a time you had to adapt your communication style to reach someone who wasn't understanding you."
Value it fits
Play, as a team: getting your point across to someone who sees things differently.
How to answer it
Say who wasn't following you and why (a different background, level of expertise or way of working), what you tried first, and how you changed your approach. Treat it as your job to adapt, and tell the story without blaming the other person.
Question 06
"Give me an example of a time you prioritised user or customer needs over internal convenience."
Value it fits
Don't #@!% the customer: putting the customer first when there's pressure to cut corners.
How to answer it
Describe a time the easier option would have left a user or customer worse off, and explain why you took the harder one. It could come from a uni project, a part-time job or a club role. The stakes don't need to be high, as long as you show you thought about how your work would affect someone else.
Question 07
"Describe a time you received critical feedback. How did you respond?"
Value it fits
Open company, no bullshit: hearing honest feedback well, and acting on it.
How to answer it
Choose feedback that was specific and hard to hear, rather than vague praise. Describe how you reacted at first (it's fine to say it stung), how you thought it over and what you changed. Give an example of something you did differently afterwards, because "I took it on board" doesn't tell them what changed.
Question 08
"Tell me about a time you had to deliver something of high quality on a tight deadline."
Value it fits
Build with heart and balance: working with urgency while still thinking your options through.
How to answer it
Set out the deadline and what was riding on it. Then explain what you did first, what you left out or cut back, and how you kept the quality where it needed to be. Say which trade-offs you made, and who you told about them.
Question 09
"Why Atlassian? Why not Google, Canva, or another tech company?"
What they want to know
Whether you've thought about why Atlassian in particular, and know what it does.
How to answer it
Be specific. You could talk about the products and the teams that use them, Team Anywhere and what it means for how people work, or one of the values. Then connect it to your own experience: a group project you ran in Jira or Trello, say, or why working in a distributed team appeals to you. If your answer would work for any tech company, rewrite it.
Question 10
"Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with someone whose working style was very different from yours."
Value it fits
Play, as a team: working well with people who aren't like you.
How to answer it
Describe the difference (pace, how you each liked to communicate, how much risk you were each comfortable with), the friction it caused and how you worked through it. Finish with something you learned about working with people unlike you, and where you've used it since, rather than stopping at "we figured it out".

What to know about Atlassian before your interview

Atlassian's guide asks you to research the role, the craft, the company and its values before your interview. Start with these:

  • The products: Jira (project management, first built for software teams), Confluence (shared documents and team knowledge), Trello (boards for organising tasks), Loom (short recorded videos, bought by Atlassian in 2023), Bitbucket (source code and CI/CD) and Rovo (Atlassian's AI, announced in 2024). If you've used any of them, have a view on what they do well and what you'd improve.
  • Team Anywhere: Atlassian's distributed work policy, announced in 2020. Meetings are virtual by default and a lot of communication is asynchronous, so be ready to talk about working with people who aren't in the room, or online at the same time as you.
  • The mission and values: both are on Atlassian's company pages, with a short description of each value. Read them in Atlassian's own words, since this article only summarises them.
  • The company history: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar met at the University of New South Wales and started Atlassian in Sydney in 2002, funded at first with a credit card.
Before your interview

Put most of your preparation into true stories about how you've worked with other people, matched to the five values. Make each one specific enough that the interviewer can picture what happened.