If you're just starting out your career, think carefully - Junior Software Engineer Atlassian Employee Review

1.0
2 Jan 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Atlassian is a nice place to work at, it has the perks: breakfast, lunch, open floor plans, semi-relaxed work atmosphere, etc. You can generally work in your own style and 90% of the time that's okay - which is a really good thing.

Cons

If you're just starting your career, and really care about it then you *need* to stay far away from Atlassian's "Graduate Developer" program. You might have had some other experience - open source experience, other jobs, freelancing, etc - but if you apply for that position then they'll only ever see you as a newbie university student and they'll always use that against you. You might have an aptitude for programming, or you might just be really great at it - if so, good for you! But, Atlassian is *not* the place for you to build your career if that's the case. Say you join a team of Developers or Senior Developers, and you've been performing and working at the same level (or even higher) for over 12 months straight? Sorry, no promotion or career development for you. You were a "Graduate Developer". That means you're promoted based on the performance of *all the other Graduate Developers*, not based on what you do. TL;DR: If you don't care about your career from the start, you're happy just to coast for years and have no desire to move forward, then this job is for you. But, if you care about your career progression, you have a passion for software development and want to make the world a better place, then stay far away from their "Graduate Developer" program - they'll only stop you, halt you and won't ever recognize the good work that you do until maybe half a decade down the track they decide that you're a real developer and should be treated accordingly.

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Atlassian Response
7y
We're sorry to hear about your experience. We built the graduate developer program with the goal of enhancing grad careers and facilitating career development; we'll keep working to make sure that goal is achieved across the board. When evaluating promotions, those decisions are based on individual performance and readiness for the next level. If you've received different information, we would encourage you to speak with your manager and voice any concerns. ~Atlassian People Team

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I want to start by saying I am not bitter or angry. Working for Atlassian was a whirlwind. I was there for 11 months before being laid off via email. In my time there, I went through 2 re-orgs and 3 managers. It just always felt like being on a hamster wheel… in a hurricane. Today I received an email 7 weeks after I was laid off that started with, “ Congrats on your first year at Atlassian—we know that's a huge accomplishment and are beyond thrilled to be celebrating with you!” It was a bummer to receive that, to say the least, but it included a link to leave this Glassdoor review to “ help provide invaluable insight to future candidates and help us to improve your experience as an employee continually.” so here I am. My advice is to do proper change management of your automated emails when you layoff 5% of your workforce so that emails like this aren’t sent to hard working former employees that you eliminated congratulating them on a milestone they never reached. I know this wasn’t intentional, but it hurt.

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