Hi all, I’m currently a Staff Software Engineer with nearly 14 years of experience, primarily working on internal tools, developer experience. And recently, I’ve contributed to building GenAI solutions for various internal teams (engineering, sales, IT, marketing, etc.), but my exposure has mostly been to internal tools rather than customer-facing products or large-scale platforms. I spent almost 8-10 months preparing for interviews, and I was able to land 2-3 offers. One of them is this week; I received an offer from Atlassian for a Principal Software Engineer role on a product/platform development team that’s much closer to customer-facing products. Which is the better offer out of other offers. This is exciting for me, since I’ve always wanted to work at this scale and have a broader impact. A few questions/concerns: Transition & Gaps: My experience so far is primarily with internal tools, not leading customer product teams or setting technical direction for large-scale, customer-facing platforms. I’ve always wanted to work on products with broader customer impact and scale, but I’m not sure how steep the learning curve will be, or if my background will be a major challenge. Company Culture & Stability: I don’t have “Big Tech” experience and have seen a lot of worrying reviews on Blind about Atlassian (stack ranking, PIPs, etc). I’m on a visa, so job stability is really important to me. The offer is a big TC bump and aligns with my interest in customer/platform work, but I’m concerned about taking the risk compared to my current stable job. Questions: Has anyone made a similar transition from internal tools to customer-facing product/platform roles at this level? What challenges should I expect? Is the “risk” (cultural, job stability, PIP/stack ranking, etc) at Atlassian as bad as Blind makes it sound? For someone on a visa, is it worth taking the leap for career growth, impact, and compensation?

Congrats on the offer! Atlassian is a top company, and the principal uplevel is quite impressive. Is the “risk” (cultural, job stability, PIP/stack ranking, etc) at Atlassian as bad as Blind makes it sound? Literally nothing is bad as Blind makes it out to be, but the harsh truth is that Atlassian has indeed gotten very competitive and toxic over the past few years (I've talked to many Taro community members who have worked at Atlassian). From my understanding, their current CTO is from Meta, and he brought the worst parts of Meta culture with him (commit counting, aggressive stack rank, etc). Has anyone made a similar transition from internal tools to customer-facing product/platform roles at this level? What challenges should I expect? I think the big thing is that you'll need to develop a much sharper product sense. I recommend this playlist: [[Taro Top 10] Product Management For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/2GNJo0RWsT4GK6VXyWIy/) For someone on a visa, is it worth taking the leap for career growth, impact, and compensation? I think for anybody, it's generally good to challenge yourself and keep trying to push your skills to new heights. In a vacuum, I recommend taking the offer. Best of luck!

Job Switch Advice

Staff Software Engineer at Taro Communitya day ago

Atlassian

Principal Engineer

Staff Engineer

Hi all,

I’m currently a Staff Software Engineer with nearly 14 years of experience, primarily working on internal tools, developer experience. And recently, I’ve contributed to building GenAI solutions for various internal teams (engineering, sales, IT, marketing, etc.), but my exposure has mostly been to internal tools rather than customer-facing products or large-scale platforms.

I spent almost 8-10 months preparing for interviews, and I was able to land 2-3 offers. One of them is this week; I received an offer from Atlassian for a Principal Software Engineer role on a product/platform development team that’s much closer to customer-facing products. Which is the better offer out of other offers.

This is exciting for me, since I’ve always wanted to work at this scale and have a broader impact.

A few questions/concerns:

Transition & Gaps:
My experience so far is primarily with internal tools, not leading customer product teams or setting technical direction for large-scale, customer-facing platforms. I’ve always wanted to work on products with broader customer impact and scale, but I’m not sure how steep the learning curve will be, or if my background will be a major challenge.
Company Culture & Stability:
I don’t have “Big Tech” experience and have seen a lot of worrying reviews on Blind about Atlassian (stack ranking, PIPs, etc). I’m on a visa, so job stability is really important to me. The offer is a big TC bump and aligns with my interest in customer/platform work, but I’m concerned about taking the risk compared to my current stable job.

Questions:

Has anyone made a similar transition from internal tools to customer-facing product/platform roles at this level? What challenges should I expect?
Is the “risk” (cultural, job stability, PIP/stack ranking, etc) at Atlassian as bad as Blind makes it sound?
For someone on a visa, is it worth taking the leap for career growth, impact, and compensation?

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33 Comments

Discussion

(3 comments)

0
Alex Chiou
•Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
a day ago
Congrats on the offer! Atlassian is a top company, and the principal uplevel is quite impressive.

Is the “risk” (cultural, job stability, PIP/stack ranking, etc) at Atlassian as bad as Blind makes it sound?

Literally nothing is bad as Blind makes it out to be, but the harsh truth is that Atlassian has indeed gotten very competitive and toxic over the past few years (I've talked to many Taro community members who have worked at Atlassian). From my understanding, their current CTO is from Meta, and he brought the worst parts of Meta culture with him (commit counting, aggressive stack rank, etc).

Has anyone made a similar transition from internal tools to customer-facing product/platform roles at this level? What challenges should I expect?

I think the big thing is that you'll need to develop a much sharper product sense. I recommend this playlist: [Taro Top 10] Product Management For Engineers

For someone on a visa, is it worth taking the leap for career growth, impact, and compensation?

I think for anybody, it's generally good to challenge yourself and keep trying to push your skills to new heights. In a vacuum, I recommend taking the offer.

Best of luck!
- 0
  Staff Software Engineer [OP]
  •Taro Community
  19 hours ago
  Thank you for the detailed response.
  Are there any specific resources you would recommend for staff or principal engineers to learn how to,
  
  Drive multiple work streams,
  
  Create impact across multiple teams in a short period.
  
  And set technical direction at scale?
- 0
  Alex Chiou
  •Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
  11 hours ago
  
  Drive multiple work streams,
  
  I recommend these courses:
  
  Networking Guide: Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech - You will need to work through others, and that's most effective if they really like you
  
  Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer - Understand how to prioritize and get more from your time
  
  Create impact across multiple teams in a short period.
  
  I think that's almost impossible as your first 1-2 months will mostly be around earning trust. I would try to find a big win localized within your team as a foundation. Here's my advice on how to do that: "How do I come up with innovative, impactful ideas and bring them to my team?"
  
  And set technical direction at scale?
  
  Make high quality system design docs and go to a ton of system design meetings from other staff/principal/distinguished engineers to learn how they make high-quality docs.
  
  Before you are even able to do that though, you should show a stellar level of individual code quality to earn trust: Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer
  
  The expectations of Atlassian Principal are around the same as Meta Staff, so I recommend this as well: Grow From Senior To Staff Engineer: L5 To L6