Atlassian Interview Process - Senior Software Engineer

I applied for Atlassian's Senior Software Engineer role and was invited to a technical screening with four parts.

I revised DSA fundamentals, Java coding, backend concepts and high-level system design, focusing on distributed systems, caching, scalability and external API failures.

Round 1: Technical screening (45 minutes)

Introduction (5 minutes)

We briefly discussed my professional background and experience.

Coding and problem solving (20 minutes)

Write a Java method that takes a URL, makes an HTTP GET request and returns the response data. Follow-up: how would you handle duplicate URL requests to avoid repeated network calls?

The problem was open-ended, so I spent time clarifying the scope before coding. Compilation errors meant I didn't get it running within the 20 minutes.

High-level design (15 minutes)

How would you put the URL-fetching solution into production for roughly 1 million requests? Discuss architecture, scalability, caching and handling HTTP errors, especially 403 (Forbidden) and 429 (Too Many Requests).

I explained my approach but over-explained a few topics.

My questions (5 minutes)

This time was reserved for questions about the role, team and engineering culture.

The interviewer was friendly and approachable, and the discussion felt like a conversation. It was a practical backend screening covering coding fundamentals and designing scalable production systems.

Outcome

Rejected.

Tips

• Manage your time in a short screening. Get the code running with test cases before optimising.

• Keep HLD explanations specific, concise and structured. Cover architectural decisions and trade-offs without spending too long on individual topics.

• Practise HTTP clients and external API calls in your preferred language.

• Know cache keys, TTL, eviction policies and distributed caching using Redis.

• Prepare for HLD discussions on horizontal scaling, concurrency, cache stampedes, rate limiting, retries and circuit breakers.

• Understand HTTP status codes and how to handle errors, plus production concerns: scalability, fault tolerance, security and observability.