Inherited Meta culture, employees pay the price - Principal Software Engineer Atlassian Employee Review

2.0
Nov 23, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Candid Review for Fellow Developers After another year and a half under the current performance review system, I realize my last assessment was too generous. While some budget cuts and tightening were inevitable given the market, the level of distrust management shows toward long-tenured engineers is staggering. There’s a constant, demoralizing assumption that you can always be replaced by someone better and cheaper. The Good: * It’s still remote-first (unless you're a new grad). * You will work with some brilliant people, though the current stress levels are pushing many of them to the breaking point. * We make a few products that people actually use, which is nice. * The pay (both salary and TC) is still very competitive.

Cons

The Reality (Why I'm Leaving): * The company is now actively pushing back on work-life balance. Expect near-constant pressure to work more. * Management has doubled down on a brutal 'sink-or-swim' culture with heavy, unforgiving performance processes and an expectation that people will burn out and leave. * There's a lot of talk about "developer joy" while the core issues—massive technical debt and a bad imbalance where Product overrules Engineering—go completely unfixed.

Explore other reviews about Atlassian

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Good TC package -Great team to work with with good leadership direction -Growth/Expansion Mindset

Cons

-None that I think of

3.0
Apr 30, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amazing people, I loved the core values, competitive salary, great benefits

Cons

I want to start by saying I am not bitter or angry. Working for Atlassian was a whirlwind. I was there for 11 months before being laid off via email. In my time there, I went through 2 re-orgs and 3 managers. It just always felt like being on a hamster wheel… in a hurricane. Today I received an email 7 weeks after I was laid off that started with, “ Congrats on your first year at Atlassian—we know that's a huge accomplishment and are beyond thrilled to be celebrating with you!” It was a bummer to receive that, to say the least, but it included a link to leave this Glassdoor review to “ help provide invaluable insight to future candidates and help us to improve your experience as an employee continually.” so here I am. My advice is to do proper change management of your automated emails when you layoff 5% of your workforce so that emails like this aren’t sent to hard working former employees that you eliminated congratulating them on a milestone they never reached. I know this wasn’t intentional, but it hurt.

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