Atlassian design interview handbook

Your first two steps in the design interview process at Atlassian will be a recruiter screen and an inteview with the hiring manager. The recruiter screen will be an informal 30-minute chat about your background, skills, and goals, in which we can get to know you and your career aspirations.

The hiring manager interview is a 60-minute in-depth interview to discuss the role, your expertise, and why you want to be an Atlassian.

The first 30 minutes are a structured deep dive where we'll ask a series of scenario-based questions that aim to assess the core competencies for the role. Think about situations where you've had to deliver results, build relationships and communicate cross-functionally, and embrace change during times of ambiguity.

The second part of the interview provides an opportunity to show off your craft excellence: you’ll present a 10-minute case study, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A about it. You’ll be sent preparation materials so you have guidance on what to prepare.

Finally, the interview will finish with about five minutes for you to ask the hiring manager any questions you may have about the role or working at Atlassian.

The Portfolio Review is a 45-minute interview which is broken into two parts. The first part is a presentation by you showcasing your best work, and for Content Design roles, a writing exercise. This is followed by Q&A led by the hiring manager for the role. Individual contributor candidates should expect a deep dive into the details of the choices you made, while with management candidates, we’ll talk more about how you led the team and shaped the final result. 

Keep in mind that while the projects you choose are important, the design of a portfolio itself matters, too. A few tips:

• Show us recent projects, preferably from the past 3-4 years.
• We're primarily looking to understand your craft skills, so show us examples that demonstrate your skills in the specific craft you are interviewing for (e.g. product design, content design, design operations, or for management roles, those that show how you lead and inspire teams with design excellence)
• You should also briefly share your approach, the core problems you were solving for, and factors such as time management, collaboration, success metrics, and learnings from a project.
• It’s time-consuming but worthwhile to put your portfolio together thoughtfully, rather than simply jumping between preexisting PDFs or sharing entire Figma files.  Pay attention to detail, just as you would in your design work, from how you use typography and how much text you put on each page, to how you frame your images.

This session is also an opportunity to showcase your communication skills. Storytelling can be a big part of the job—you may need to quickly get leadership up to speed on a project or succinctly explain your rationale and goals to a teammate.

Also - we understand most projects are collaborations, so be upfront about your specific contributions.

The portfolio follow up is an opportunity for us to ask questions about your portfolio review presentation. The interview is scheduled as a single 60-minute block and is conducted by two interviewers, one after the other. In some instances, due to availability, the 30-minute interviews won't be scheduled back-to-back. When this is the case, we'll aim to ensure they both happen within 24 hours.

The first 30 minutes focus on Product Thinking (essentially, your level of understanding of the products and services you engage with, and the business value they bring), and the next 30 minutes focus on Craft Excellence (your technical proficiency as a designer).

For our more senior Individual Contributor and manager roles, you may also meet with counterparts from Engineering and Product in what we call a “triad interview.” This is an opportunity to understand how you might work together. You’ll discuss topics like how to approach trade-offs, how you view the role of design, and how you collaborate. Mostly, it’s an opportunity to get to know each other—to figure out if you would be excited to work together as a team.

Finally, like every candidate interviewing for a role at Atlassian, you’ll have a 45-minute “values interview,” likely with someone from a different part of the organisation.

These sessions are relaxed, conversational, and not necessarily about the role, though questions are tailored for managers and ICs. We encourage you to use the STAR method for our values interview, where you describe the situation, task, action, and result. You can also draw on any experience you have, including but not limited to work. Our goal is to understand how you think and work with others. 

And whether it’s during the values interview or throughout the day, we welcome questions from you, too. Every interview should be a two-way conversation—so if something’s on your mind at any point, please feel free to ask.

What are our 5 values? Learn about them here.

When each interviewer finishes their meeting with you, they’ll write down feedback as soon as possible.

Your interviewing team will get together and follow an unbiased process to decide whether you’re a great fit for Atlassian. The outcome will be based on the information gathered during the interview process, and includes a calibration session between all interviewers to come to a decision on your application. We aim to make decisions that align with your skills and experience, and we may offer you a different position that we believe suits your strengths.

Regardless of the outcome, it’s our goal to always provide feedback so you know where you did well and where you might improve. From your portfolio review to your values interview and everything in between—if you apply for a job with us, we will consider it our job to help you succeed.

We want our Design team, and its leadership, to be fully representative, from gender and sexual orientation to race and religion to educational background, and we’re working hard to get closer to that goal. When we say we want to “unleash the power of every team,” that includes our own—and it requires not only building up the diversity of thought and background in design at Atlassian but also helping each individual, whether they’re already on our team or just interviewing for a role, to grow and thrive.

If you’re excited about our mission, value autonomy, and want to be a better designer every day, we hope that you’ll join us—and that this guide will help you take the first step on a long and successful journey.

To ensure you have the best candidate experience possible, please let your Talent Acquisition Partner know what accomodations or adjustments you require at any stage of the recruitment process.