Atlassian Intern Interview Guide

We are looking forward to meeting you!

WHO ARE WE?

Atlassian is a global software company that makes over a dozen products
like Jira, Bitbucket, Trello, and Confluence. We help teams of all sizes all
over the world unleash their full potential. From coding and
collaborating, to just getting stuff done—we’re all about empowering
teams to innovate better and faster.

INTERVIEW
GUIDE Engineering at Atlassian
At Atlassian, we use a lot of different tech stacks—and many different
languages. Our engineering teams build on top of frequently used
foundations to develop, ship, and run highly secure, reliable, and
compliant software at scale. You might switch from one to another in a
single week, solving problems on the backend, frontend, or somewhere
else entirely. You might join us as a member of a product team and move
to a different one a year later.
Instead of evaluating candidates based on their proficiency in a specific
language, we’re looking for people with broadly distributed engineering
skills, and we have designed our interview process accordingly. It’s an
assessment framework based not on languages, but on your problem-
solving ability and learning agility. Because of this, we’re able to see a
candidate’s depth and breadth. We’d like to see not only how you code,
but how you think.

We have put this information sheet together to help you prepare for your
Software Engineer Intern interviews. We hope this is beneficial in making
you feel ready to meet the team.

Our Intern Hiring Process consists of the following rounds:

HackerRank Test
Coding Interview
Values & Leadership Interview
 HackerRank Test

The HackerRank test is the first level of assessment when you appear for
the Software Engineer Intern role. It is a 90-minute proctored test that has
3 coding questions to solve. These questions are based on the concepts of
Data Structures and Algorithms. Keep a check on time and code efficiency
while working on the solutions.

Tips to ace the HackerRank assessment:

1. Problem-Solving Strategy: There are 3 coding questions. Before
INTERVIEW starting, skim through all the questions and decide the order of solving.
GUIDE It’s recommended to solve them in ascending order of difficulty or time.
Try to attempt all the questions even if you don’t know the complete
solution as the test has partial marking on.

2. Time Management: Since HackerRank challenges are timed, it is

essential to ensure that you are in a calm, focused environment where
you won’t be disturbed. Once the test timer is started, it cannot be
paused. Try to minimize the time spent switching between problems and
ensure that your solution is final so you won’t have to revisit it.

3. Answering Coding Questions: Before jumping to code, try to understand

the problem statement thoroughly, write clean and readable code and
don’t forget to test your code with multiple inputs to check its robustness.
The test is language agnostic. Feel free to use the language you feel most
confident using (such as C, C#, C++, Javascript, Python, Java, Go, and many
others).

4. Plagiarism and Proctoring: The test will be proctored, you should

ensure that you have a stable internet and a fully functional webcam.
Plagiarism/malpractice cases (like switching tabs, copying/ pasting, using
multiple monitors, talking to others, etc.) if found will not be considered
for further process.
5. Practice is Important: Before taking up the test, try these practice tests
to familiarise yourself with the HackerRank test environment and
Atlassian assessment format.

Sample Test 1
Sample Test 2
Sample Test 3

Before starting the test, go through Browser Recommendations for Test

and Status Check your system settings. For any questions, refer Campus
Hiring FAQs or reach out to [email protected].
 Initial Coding Interview

This interview requires you to write and execute code - Be prepared with
an IDE set up on your computer that is suitable for your chosen language
prior to the commencement of your interviews - the one you are most
familiar and comfortable with. You will screen-share this with your
interviewer.

Tips and Tricks:

INTERVIEW Throughout the coding interview, using common investigation techniques

GUIDE as needed is encouraged (e.g. debugging, googling, consulting docs,
automated testing).
The interviews are assessed against specific capabilities (Code Quality,
Adaptability, Conceptual Thinking, Decision Making & Resourcefulness)
which is best done by communicating your problem-solving, writing and
executing code, and using tests to demonstrate that it functions as
expected.
Try to keep moving, but don’t panic if you don’t finish all the tasks. We are
assessing the capabilities mentioned above, not how much you finish.

Communication:
Demonstrating how you think and approach problem-solving is equally
important as the end result. Please communicate with your interviewer
throughout each session, so they understand your thought process. We
want to understand your approach to problem-solving and how you draw
from past experiences while designing something new. Keep the customer
in mind and how your solution might perform and scale.

Testing:
We want to see best practices, and testing is crucial to succeed in the code
task. If you haven't tested in a while, we strongly recommend brushing up
on testing, in particular the TDD approach.

Problem-Solving:
Because problems are rarely limited to a single solution, please showcase
all possible solutions and explain why the approach you selected is the
best fit. Highlighting other solutions helps the interviewer understand your
thought process.
 Seek first to understand:
You’ll be asked to design a solution for a technical problem on a
whiteboard or paper — starting with fundamentals and then building in
complexity.
Ask any clarifying questions upfront to ensure you understand the
problem and then continue to communicate with your interviewer as you
progress towards a solution. If your interview is via Zoom, ensure you have
paper and pen available for the technical problem. Alternatively, you can
use Excalidraw. Another option is to screen share an editor or drawing tool
INTERVIEW of your choice.
GUIDE

Values & Leadership Interview

The Values & Leadership Interview includes a set of behavioral interview

questions, aimed at assessing how your thought process and actions are
aligned with our core set of company values. The interviewer will also dive
deeper into your experience, interest in Atlassian, and how you will add
impact and contribute to the team and organisation.

How to prepare:
We recommend reviewing Atlassian's values and using them as the
foundation of your preparation. Come prepared with relevant
examples/stories of how you've demonstrated living these values in your
past internships, college projects, hackathons, experience working in clubs
or participating in college events. You will also be assessed on:
Your ability to drive outcomes across the software development
lifecycle
How you apply lessons learnt on the job/ project and share them
Your ability to manage conflict across various situations
How you have influenced the choices or direction of a project
How you take initiative, lead and inspire in your role
 Play, as a team
How do you work with other people? How have you helped make a
team/individual more successful if they weren’t performing well? Have you
ever had to put the team’s goals above personal ambitions?

Build with heart and balance

What do you think about prioritization and decision-making? What are
examples of when you or the team have missed the mark? How did you
react? How did you approach fixing things?

INTERVIEW
GUIDE Don’t #@!% the customer
How is your mentality ‘user-centered’? How have you put the customer first?
What trade-off(s) did you make to do this?

Open company no bullshit

What's your approach when having difficult conversations? How have you
resolved conflict in the past? Have you adapted your communication style to
achieve a better outcome in a potentially negative situation?

Be the change you seek

When have you advocated to push for change? What did you learn from this
process? What was the outcome?

See how well your values align with

ours
Take the Values Quiz!
 Interviewing 101

Storytelling:

We would recommend preparing 5-6 examples prior to your interview that covers
success stories, growth stories, achievements, setbacks, learning experiences, and
where you overcame a problem. Where possible, think of completed projects so you
can share end-to-end stories.

*Not every example has to showcase the "perfect" outcome or process, we are just as
interested in hearing about the growth journey and learnings as we are about your
success.
INTERVIEW
GUIDE
An interview is one of those occasions where it's encouraged to make it about
yourself. We value teamwork but we also want to know what contribution you made
and encourage you to showcase your individual ability throughout the interview
process. Although we truly value teamwork, we want to hear about the contribution
that you made as an individual. Make it easy for the interviewer to understand your
involvement by using "I" instead of "we".

*We always recommend structuring your answers using the STAR method - situation,
task, action, and result. Set the premise, the opening, paint a picture. Take the listener
on a journey with you.

Communication:

Did you answer the question in a way that paints a picture of the problem,
solution, and end result?
Did you provide enough context for the listener to understand the problem and
solution or are you just talking about achievements?
Did you actually answer the question or did you steer off track which led to the
story not tieing back to the initial question?

Remember that connecting solutions back to strategy and the why behind it is crucial.

Time Management:
Be mindful of time - strike a balance between a good narrative and the time taken
to deliver it
Practice makes perfect! When in doubt, time yourself speaking out loud. If your
examples are longer than X minutes, you should refine and try again

About Atlassian:
Think about WHY you want to be a part of Atlassian
What do you know about Atlassian's domain space or products?
What makes you aligned?
Think about WHY you want to be a Software Engineer Intern at Atlassian

ALL THE BEST!