--- title: "Atlassian interview process and practice questions | Orbit" description: "How Atlassian interviews, as candidates commonly report it: the rounds, what interviewers listen for, and 13 practice questions with what a good answer covers." canonical: https://orbitanswer.com/companies/atlassian last_reviewed: 2026-10-18 --- [Companies](https://orbitanswer.com/companies) [Roles](https://orbitanswer.com/roles) [Free warm-up](https://orbitanswer.com/warmup) - [Home](https://orbitanswer.com/) - [Companies](https://orbitanswer.com/companies) - Atlassian Company interview guide # Atlassian interview process and practice questions Atlassian, which makes Jira, Confluence and Trello, publishes how it interviews engineers: a coding interview, a system design interview, a manager interview and a separate values interview, usually with someone from outside the team. Candidates commonly report that the values interview carries real weight, and Atlassian says a hiring committee reviews the interviewers' feedback before a decision. As candidates commonly report it; it varies by team, level and year. Last reviewed 18 October 2026. [Practise a mock interview in Atlassian's style](https://orbitanswer.com/register) [Warm up free on these questions](https://orbitanswer.com/warmup?track=company%3Aatlassian) ## The interview process - 1 Recruiter screen - 2 Technical interviews: coding and system design - 3 A values interview - 4 Hiring manager / management interview ## What interviewers listen for - Open company, no nonsense - Build with heart and balance - Don't let the customer down - Play, as a team - Be the change you seek - Clear reasoning about trade-offs in code and design - How you collaborate and communicate, including with people outside engineering ## Behavioral questions ### Tell me about a time you shared bad news openly. A good answer covers - What the news was and who needed to hear it - Why you shared it early and plainly instead of softening or delaying it - How people reacted and what was done about the problem ### Tell me about a time you balanced speed with doing it right. A good answer covers - The deadline pressure and what doing it right meant in that case - What you shipped first and what you deliberately held back or fixed later - How it worked out, and whether you'd strike the same balance again ### Tell me about something you changed for the better at work. A good answer covers - What wasn't working and who it affected - How you got others on board rather than changing it alone - What improved, with a number or a clear before-and-after ### Tell me about a time a customer problem made you change your team's plans. A good answer covers - The customer, the problem and how you heard about it - What you dropped or delayed, and how you agreed that with your team - What the customer got and what you learned about planning ### Tell me about a team success you're proud of. How did you help others do their best work? A good answer covers - The goal and who was on the team - Credit to others, plus a clear account of your own part - How you supported teammates: reviews, unblocking, sharing knowledge ### Tell me about working with teammates in other time zones. How did you keep work visible and decisions clear? A good answer covers - The setup: who was where and what you were building - Written habits you used: docs, tickets, decision notes, async updates - A moment it nearly went wrong and how you fixed it ## Role and technical questions ### How would you design notifications for an issue tracker like Jira, so people hear about changes that matter without being flooded? A good answer covers - Clarifying who gets notified and through which channels - Events flowing through a queue, with user preferences and batching or digests - Handling bursts such as bulk edits, and measuring whether people find it useful ### Talk me through how you'd design a shared page editor where several people can edit the same page at once. A good answer covers - How edits are sent and merged, and what happens when two people change the same text - Saving versions so changes can be undone or reviewed - Keeping it fast for large pages and working when a connection drops ### Walk me through how you'd structure the code for a simple rate limiter so it's easy to change and test. A good answer covers - A clear interface first, then one algorithm such as a token bucket - Separating the limiting logic from storage and time, so it can be tested - Edge cases: bursts, many users, and running on more than one server ### Walk me through a past project: who you worked with, the hardest technical problem and the business reason for the work. A good answer covers - Why the business needed it, in a sentence - The hardest technical problem and the options you weighed - Who you worked with and how you'd do it differently now ### A release you shipped has broken a feature for a large customer. What do you do in the first hour, and afterwards? A good answer covers - Limiting the damage first: roll back or switch off the change - Telling the customer and your team honestly what is happening - A blameless review afterwards and the fix that stops it recurring ## Why Atlassian? Fit and HR questions ### Why Atlassian? Which of its products have you used, and what would you improve in one? A good answer covers - A reason linked to the team or product, not only the brand - A real experience with Jira, Confluence, Trello or another product - One specific improvement and who it would help ### Which Atlassian value means most to you, and when have you acted on it? A good answer covers - One value, named once - A short, true example from your own work - Why that way of working matters to you ## Tips - The values interview carries real weight: prepare a story for each value. - Atlassian's engineering guide says interviewers care more about how you reason through trade-offs than about a missing line of code, so talk through your choices. - The coding interview covers code design as well as data structures: think about naming, structure and how you'd test what you write. - In system design, ask about users, reliability and cost before drawing boxes, and expect follow-ups that change the constraints. - Values interviewers often come from outside engineering, so keep stories free of jargon. Credit your team, then be clear about your own part. - In the manager interview, say so if you don't know something; Atlassian's own guide recommends it. ## Practise it out loud A mock interview asks the way Atlassian's interviewers are known to, follows up on your answers and gives you a report. The warm-up is free, needs no account and checks five of these questions as you answer. [Practise a mock interview in Atlassian's style](https://orbitanswer.com/register) [Warm up free on these questions](https://orbitanswer.com/warmup?track=company%3Aatlassian) ## About this guide Written by Orbit from Atlassian's own public pages and what candidates commonly report. Orbit isn't affiliated with Atlassian. The questions are practice questions in the style of its interviews, not questions taken from them. Processes change, so check the job post and what your recruiter tells you. ### Sources - [Atlassian engineering interview handbook (atlassian.com)](https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/resources/interviewing/how-to-nail-your-engineering-interview) - [Atlassian product interview handbook (atlassian.com)](https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/resources/career-growth/product-managers) ## Role guides to read with this one - [Software engineer Software engineer interviews usually combine coding (solving a problem out loud, often in a shared editor), computer science fundamentals and a discussion of… 17 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/roles/software-engineer) - [Data scientist Data scientist interviews usually test statistics, machine learning, SQL and Python, then how you'd use them on a business problem: choosing a metric,… 17 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/roles/data-scientist) - [Machine learning engineer Machine learning engineer interviews usually combine software engineering (coding and system design) with machine learning: how models are trained, evaluated,… 17 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/roles/machine-learning-engineer) - [Product manager Product manager interviews usually test product sense (designing or improving a product for a group of users), analytical thinking (metrics, estimates and… 17 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/roles/product-manager) ## More guides: global technology companies - [Booking.com Booking.com runs an online travel platform for stays, flights and other trips, and its careers site describes the process: a recruiter call, then several… 13 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/companies/booking-com) - [Cisco Cisco says its interview process varies by team and role, and that engineering roles typically include a behavioral interview and a technical assessment, such… 14 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/companies/cisco) - [Google Google says it uses structured interviews: candidates for a role get similar questions, scored against shared rubrics, and its re:Work guide to structured… 14 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/companies/google) - [IBM IBM hires for consulting, software, infrastructure and research roles, and its careers site describes the usual steps: application, screening, one or two… 13 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/companies/ibm) - [Intel Intel hires for hardware roles such as chip design, verification, validation and manufacturing, and for software close to the hardware: drivers, firmware,… 15 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/companies/intel) - [Intuit Intuit makes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp, and its careers site describes final interviews built around a 'craft demonstration': you… 13 practice questions](https://orbitanswer.com/companies/intuit) [All 100 company guides](https://orbitanswer.com/companies) [Guides by role](https://orbitanswer.com/roles)