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Rejected

P40 at Atlassian

Difficulty
Process took
2-3 Weeks
Rounds
4
Format
Remote
Applied via
Company Website

How it went

  • Unfortunately, I didn’t pass the system design round. The technical questions were good, but the interviewer’s focus was very different from what I had anticipated. I was expecting a more conceptual discussion, but the interview leaned heavily toward practical knowledge of specific technologies and their implementations.
  • While I didn’t get the offer, this interview process was a great learning experience. I now know how important it is to be prepared for specific technological deep dives and system design implementation discussions.

What they would tell you

  • Unfortunately, I didn’t pass the system design round. The technical questions were good, but the interviewer’s focus was very different from what I had anticipated. I was expecting a more conceptual discussion, but the interview leaned heavily toward practical knowledge of specific technologies and their implementations.
  • While I didn’t get the offer, this interview process was a great learning experience. I now know how important it is to be prepared for specific technological deep dives and system design implementation discussions.

How to prepare

  • Don’t just focus on conceptual design; make sure you’re well-versed in practical implementations like REST APIs, databases, and messaging queues.
  • Be ready to adjust your approach based on the interviewer’s focus. If they dive into specific technologies, be prepared to discuss them in-depth.

Round by round

  1. 1

    Karat Round90 min

    I recently had the opportunity to interview for a P40 role at Atlassian, and while I didn’t make it through, the process provided great insight into the company's expectations. The first round was with Karat, and it was focused on coding challenges that are commonly asked in Atlassian interviews. It was a good warm-up and helped me get into the groove of their problem-solving approach. The questions were mainly around algorithms and data structures, aiming to test efficiency and clarity in solving common interview problems.

  2. 2

    System Design 160 min

    The first real technical round was focused on designing a rating system. The task was to create a system that calculates the average rating. This was followed by multiple follow-up questions where I had to discuss edge cases, improvements, and how the system would handle scaling if required. This round was a good test of how well I could design systems while keeping performance and edge cases in mind. The interviewer seemed pleased with my approach and wanted to hear about my thought process in-depth.

  3. 3

    DSA60 min

    This round introduced a classic Atlassian problem: a population tracker. The challenge involved implementing a +1/-1 tracker to update population counts. Then, I was asked to print the top K values. The problem didn’t require highly optimized solutions; a simple approach using sets worked well. This round emphasized understanding the problem and quickly coming up with a working solution. The interviewer was less concerned with optimization and more interested in seeing how efficiently I could solve the problem within the given constraints.

  4. 4

    System Design 260 min

    This round really caught me off guard. I had prepared myself for a scalable system design discussion, but the conversation ended up diving deep into specific technologies instead. I was asked to design a tagging system and, naturally, I started with how I’d scale the system. But the interviewer quickly steered the conversation towards REST APIs, the differences between Cassandra vs DynamoDB, and using tools like SQS or Kafka for messaging. I was a bit surprised because I hadn’t prepared for such a deep dive into tech specifics, I was more focused on the high-level design concepts. In hindsight, this round really taught me how Atlassian values practical knowledge of technologies. I had focused more on the big-picture design and didn’t anticipate the need to dig into the details of the tech stack. It was a valuable lesson in being flexible during interviews and being ready to shift focus based on what the interviewer wants to explore.

What came up

HardRemote4 5 years

A candidate-reported account, lightly edited. Interview processes change by team and date.

Sources