Atlassian

Some brilliant engineers, though they are often buried under process or leave.

Remote work helps reduce commute time, but it does little to offset the stress.

Declining Compensation

The heavy reliance on stock-based pay has significantly reduced total earnings year over year.

Leadership Lacks Vision

Frequent shifts in company messaging make it hard to trust what’s real versus what serves internal agendas.

Excessive Process

Too many layers of management and process with little technical depth or rational reasoning, making decisions based on optics rather than substance.

Unhealthy Work Culture

Overwork, internal politics, and vanity metrics have become the norm. Performance measurement is driven by arbitrary numbers rather than meaningful contributions.

Stack Ranking & Internal Competition

Employees are forced into a rigid ranking system that encourages unhealthy competition instead of collaboration. Leadership actively pits individuals and teams against each other, prioritizing internal optics over actual value.

No Agency

Tech decisions are not driven by long-term strategy or market needs but by internal politics and internal marketing. Initiatives are abandoned at any time based on leadership optics. Addressing tech debt is nearly impossible without risking career stagnation or worse.

Customer Focus is Superficial

Many longstanding issues with high customer demand remain ignored while efforts shift toward PR-friendly initiatives.

Growth is a Moving Target

Promotions and career advancement are inconsistent and based more on optics, timing, and internal politics than merit.

If retaining strong talent is truly a priority—which I suspect it is not—leadership must focus on real, long-term investment in both people and technology rather than short-term cost-cutting and vanity metrics.

The current way of operating feels less like an intentional shift for reasons that remain unclear. Whatever the motive, this approach is not sustainable and will eventually lead to irreversible damage, hurting the business in ways that cannot be easily recovered.