I applied for the position online, via the Atlassian site. A few hours later, I received an email requesting that I complete an online coding test.

The test was quite simple, consisting of three multiple-choice questions about the Java language (they were quite technical) and two coding questions. For each question, there was some pre-generated code along with an unimplemented class that I was required to implement. The first question involved modifying an algorithm to be iterative instead of recursive. The second question involved flattening a tree (which I felt was poorly designed).

I was told to expect a response within two to four days. After five days, I had not received a response, so I called them. Some hours later, I was informed that I had been invited to an in-person/Skype coding test. As I was in Sydney that day, I was able to take the test in-person.

This second test involved sitting with an Atlassian employee and improving an event listener/publisher model with unit tests. I was given the choice of Windows or OSX, and Eclipse or IDEA. The tasks were not particularly complex, and I made it through to the final question, which my interviewer mentioned she had not seen before (or possibly only very rarely seen).

Several days later (no follow-up required on my part), I was invited to an on-site interview with two senior Atlassians (both team leads, I believe). This was scheduled to take an hour and a half and could have been done either via Skype or in-person. As I was, again, in Sydney on that day, I did this in-person.

This interview covered a project I had worked on. I was asked to sketch out several details about its architecture on a whiteboard and how I would improve on it given the opportunity (e.g., if I were starting from scratch, what would I do differently), along with various other questions. Towards the end, I was asked how I kept up-to-date on new technologies and what other technologies I worked with.

I was ultimately declined because they felt that I had worked in an "insular" technical environment (which is true), that I had not been exposed to modern technologies or good development practices (which is not necessarily true, though it could easily be that I had not had enough exposure), and that they did not get a good feel for my technical curiosity (I feel that I have enough, but I clearly didn't convince them of that, partly because I didn't realize how important it was to them). I also suspect that part of the reason was that, while I applied for a Software Developer position, I was interviewing for a Senior Developer position, and I suspect I would have been a better fit for a non-senior role.

Overall, it was a positive experience, and it has not put me off from potentially applying again in the future.

I didn't feel as though any question was difficult, but I needed to go more in-depth on some of my answers to their later questions.