Atlassian engineering hiring runs on an interview loop rather than a single written exam — often starting with a Karat-administered elimination round, then a mix of dedicated DSA, LLD (code design), and HLD (system design) rounds, plus separate values and leadership-craft rounds. The exact mix varies by level (P40/SDE-2 vs P50/Principal) and team, but the pattern below is consistent across recent (2025) candidate reports.
Typical Atlassian engineering interview process
| Stage | What it tests | Typical length |
|---|---|---|
| Karat Screening / Elimination Round | A third-party-administered mix of DSA questions plus rapid situational system-design questions | 60 min |
| DSA / Data Structures Round(s) | Graph and tree problems (lowest-common-ancestor variants show up often), plus stream/heap-style design problems | 45–60 min |
| Code Design (LLD) Round | Object-oriented design from a fairly open prompt — interviewers explicitly probe unit tests and exception handling, not just the class diagram | 45–60 min |
| System Design (HLD) Round | Requirements, API design, schema, and where the design bottlenecks as scale increases | 45–60 min |
| Values & Leadership Craft Rounds | Situational questions tied to Atlassian's stated company values, plus past leadership/technical-challenge discussion | 30–45 min each |
Even a loop where every individual round comes back as "hire" or "strong hire" doesn't guarantee an offer — candidates have reported being turned down at a final hiring-committee stage despite a clean sweep of positive round feedback. See the Interview Experiences section for real examples of how this plays out.
Prepare each track on its own terms: DSA, LLD, System Design (HLD), and Behavioral & Culture-Fit.