This guide is best for:
- PM candidates actively interviewing at Atlassian who need to understand the specific process and expectations
- PMs preparing for Atlassian's unique culture and values — what they look for goes beyond generic PM skills
- Anyone researching Atlassian PM roles to decide whether to apply and how to position themselves
Atlassian PM Interview Overview
Atlassian's PM interview process is deeply values-driven and focuses on product craft, customer empathy, and collaborative leadership. As a B2B SaaS company known for products like Jira, Confluence, Trello, and Bitbucket, Atlassian evaluates PMs on their ability to understand the needs of software development teams, design intuitive enterprise tools, and drive adoption through product-led growth. The company is famous for its unique culture — no sales team, values-based decision making, and a commitment to being an "open company, no bullshit." Atlassian PMs are expected to be customer-obsessed, data-informed, and capable of driving product-led growth in the enterprise space.
Interview style: Values-driven and collaborative. Strong emphasis on product craft, customer empathy, and the ability to work in a no-ego, team-oriented culture. Interviews assess both technical product skills and cultural alignment.. The full process typically takes 4-6 weeks from first contact to offer decision.
Key question types: Product Sense, Metrics, Behavioral, Strategy, Leadership. Read on for a complete breakdown of each interview round, what Atlassian looks for, and how to prepare effectively.
The Atlassian Interview Process
The Atlassian PM interview process consists of 4 stages over approximately 4-6 weeks. Here is what to expect at each step.
Recruiter Screen
Interviewers: Technical Recruiter
Hiring Manager Screen
Interviewers: Hiring Manager (Group PM or Head of Product)
Onsite Interviews (Virtual or In-Person)
Interviewers: PMs, Engineering Leads, Designers, Product Marketing
Final Decision
Interviewers: Hiring Committee
What Atlassian Looks For
Core Competencies
- Product-led growth expertise — driving adoption through product quality rather than sales
- B2B product craft — designing enterprise tools that are intuitive and delightful
- Customer empathy — understanding software teams, developers, and enterprise decision-makers
- Collaborative leadership — leading without ego in a team-oriented culture
- Data-informed decision making — using metrics and experiments to guide product decisions
- Platform thinking — understanding how Atlassian's products integrate into broader tool ecosystems
Cultural Values
Open company, no bullshit — transparency, honesty, and direct communication
Build with heart and balance — create products with empathy and maintain work-life balance
Don't #@!% the customer — customer experience is sacred
Play, as a team — collaboration, fun, and team success over individual glory
Be the change you seek — take initiative and drive improvement
Technical Expectations
Atlassian expects PMs to understand software development workflows, agile methodologies, and how developer tools work. Familiarity with APIs, integrations, and the Atlassian Cloud platform is valued. You should be comfortable discussing product architecture at a high level and understand how B2B products handle multi-tenancy, permissions, and data security.
Sample Atlassian Interview Questions
These are representative questions asked in Atlassian PM interviews. Use them to practice your frameworks and thinking approach.
How would you design an AI-powered feature for Jira that helps engineering managers identify project risks earlier?
Key Points to Cover:
- -Identify target users: engineering managers, project leads, scrum masters
- -Define project risks: scope creep, resource bottlenecks, blockers, velocity decline, deadline slippage
- -Propose AI features: predictive delivery estimates, risk score dashboards, automated blocker detection, trend-based alerts
- -Leverage Jira's data: issue history, sprint velocity, assignment patterns, bug rates
- -Consider the UX: non-intrusive, actionable, and integrated into existing workflows
- -Define metrics: risk prediction accuracy, time to resolution, manager satisfaction, feature adoption
Tips:
- Show understanding of how engineering teams use Jira in practice
- Make the AI transparent — managers should understand why a risk is flagged
- Consider false positives and alarm fatigue
What metrics would you use to evaluate the health of Confluence adoption within an enterprise account?
Key Points to Cover:
- -Activation metrics: number of spaces created, first page authored, team invitations sent
- -Engagement metrics: DAU/MAU ratio, pages created per user, edit frequency, comments/reactions
- -Collaboration metrics: multi-author pages, cross-team viewing, page sharing rate
- -Retention metrics: weekly active editors, returning viewers, churned users
- -Expansion metrics: new department adoption, seat utilization rate, feature adoption breadth
- -Health score: composite metric combining activation, engagement, and collaboration for account health
Tips:
- Distinguish between creator metrics (editors) and consumer metrics (viewers)
- Enterprise adoption is often team-by-team, not company-wide — segment accordingly
- Consider the network effects within an organization: more users → more content → more value
How would you approach building Atlassian's strategy to compete with Notion in the team knowledge management space?
Key Points to Cover:
- -Analyze Notion's strengths: flexibility, modern UX, bottom-up adoption, all-in-one workspace
- -Assess Confluence's strengths: enterprise features, Jira integration, established user base, compliance
- -Identify where Confluence loses to Notion: UX simplicity, flexibility, modern design, individual user experience
- -Propose strategy: modernize Confluence UX, strengthen Jira integration as differentiator, improve real-time collaboration
- -Consider product-led growth tactics: free tier improvements, template marketplace, community
- -Define competitive metrics: win rate in new evaluations, user satisfaction score, NPS vs. Notion
Tips:
- Be honest about Confluence's weaknesses — Atlassian values "open, no bullshit"
- Show that you understand product-led growth dynamics in B2B
- Consider the enterprise vs. SMB segments differently
Tell me about a time you had to be radically transparent with your team about a product decision that was unpopular.
Key Points to Cover:
- -Describe the unpopular decision and why it was necessary
- -Show how you communicated transparently about the reasoning
- -Demonstrate that you solicited feedback and genuinely listened
- -Explain how you handled pushback with honesty and respect
- -Share the outcome and how transparency affected trust
Tips:
- "Open company, no bullshit" is a core Atlassian value — this question directly tests it
- Show that you value transparency even when it's uncomfortable
- Demonstrate that honesty builds trust rather than eroding morale
Tips & Red Flags
Do This
- +Know and embody Atlassian's five core values — they are central to every interview evaluation
- +Understand product-led growth deeply — it is fundamental to how Atlassian operates
- +Think B2B: buyer vs. user dynamics, enterprise adoption cycles, security requirements
- +Use Atlassian products before your interview and form specific opinions about them
- +Be direct and authentic — "Open company, no bullshit" means interviewers want genuine communication
- +Show that you can "Play, as a team" — collaborative leadership without ego
- +Understand the competitive landscape (Notion, Monday.com, Asana, Linear)
- +Be prepared to discuss the cloud migration strategy and enterprise SaaS trends
Avoid This
- -Not knowing or embodying Atlassian's core values
- -Lacking experience with or understanding of B2B SaaS products
- -Being ego-driven or unable to demonstrate collaborative leadership
- -Not understanding product-led growth and how it differs from sales-led growth
- -Being unable to discuss developer workflows or software team productivity
- -Giving dishonest or overly polished answers (violates "no bullshit" value)
- -Not having used Atlassian products and being unable to discuss them with depth
How to Prepare for Atlassian
Must-Know Before Your Interview
Atlassian's product suite: Jira, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Jira Service Management, Statuspage, Opsgenie
Product-led growth model: no traditional sales team, products sell themselves through adoption
The Atlassian cloud migration strategy and the sunset of Server products
Atlassian's marketplace and ecosystem of third-party integrations
Competitive landscape: Monday.com, Asana, Notion, Linear, GitHub, GitLab
The Team Playbook and Atlassian's investment in team practices and culture
Atlassian Intelligence (AI) features across the product suite
Enterprise adoption challenges: security, compliance, admin controls, scalability
Recommended Preparation
- Use Atlassian products extensively: create a Jira project, write in Confluence, try Trello
- Study product-led growth strategies and how they apply to B2B SaaS
- Practice product design questions for developer tools and team productivity
- Understand the buyer-user dynamic in B2B: enterprise administrators vs. individual users
- Study Atlassian's values deeply — they are foundational to the interview evaluation
- Prepare STAR stories that demonstrate Atlassian's values (especially "Open, no bullshit" and "Play, as a team")
- Research Atlassian's AI strategy and how AI enhances existing products
- Practice metrics questions for B2B SaaS: adoption, engagement, expansion, and retention
Frequently Asked Questions
How difficult is the Atlassian PM interview?
The Atlassian PM interview is rated 3.5/5 in difficulty (Hard). The process typically takes 4-6 weeks and involves 4 stages. Atlassian's interview style is described as: Values-driven and collaborative. Strong emphasis on product craft, customer empathy, and the ability to work in a no-ego, team-oriented culture. Interviews assess both technical product skills and cultural alignment.. Key question types include Product Sense, Metrics, Behavioral, Strategy, Leadership.
What is the Atlassian PM interview process?
The Atlassian PM interview consists of 4 stages: Recruiter Screen, Hiring Manager Screen, Onsite Interviews (Virtual or In-Person), Final Decision. The total timeline is approximately 4-6 weeks. Final Decision is the final stage, where values alignment confirmation, cross-round calibration, level assessment, team matching are evaluated.
What does Atlassian look for in PM candidates?
Atlassian evaluates PM candidates on these core competencies: Product-led growth expertise — driving adoption through product quality rather than sales; B2B product craft — designing enterprise tools that are intuitive and delightful; Customer empathy — understanding software teams, developers, and enterprise decision-makers; Collaborative leadership — leading without ego in a team-oriented culture; Data-informed decision making — using metrics and experiments to guide product decisions; Platform thinking — understanding how Atlassian's products integrate into broader tool ecosystems. Culturally, they value: Open company, no bullshit — transparency, honesty, and direct communication, Build with heart and balance — create products with empathy and maintain work-life balance, Don't #@!% the customer — customer experience is sacred. Atlassian expects PMs to understand software development workflows, agile methodologies, and how developer tools work. Familiarity with APIs, integrations, and the Atlassian Cloud platform is valued. You should be comfortable discussing product architecture at a high level and understand how B2B products handle multi-tenancy, permissions, and data security.
What types of questions are asked in Atlassian PM interviews?
Atlassian PM interviews focus on Product Sense, Metrics, Behavioral, Strategy, Leadership questions. Example questions include: "How would you design an AI-powered feature for Jira that helps engineering managers identify project risks earlier?" Preparation should emphasize: Atlassian's product suite: Jira, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Jira Service Management, Statuspage, Opsgenie; Product-led growth model: no traditional sales team, products sell themselves through adoption; The Atlassian cloud migration strategy and the sunset of Server products.
How should I prepare for a Atlassian PM interview?
To prepare for Atlassian PM interviews: Use Atlassian products extensively: create a Jira project, write in Confluence, try Trello. Study product-led growth strategies and how they apply to B2B SaaS. Practice product design questions for developer tools and team productivity. Understand the buyer-user dynamic in B2B: enterprise administrators vs. individual users. Study Atlassian's values deeply — they are foundational to the interview evaluation. Prepare STAR stories that demonstrate Atlassian's values (especially "Open, no bullshit" and "Play, as a team"). Research Atlassian's AI strategy and how AI enhances existing products. Practice metrics questions for B2B SaaS: adoption, engagement, expansion, and retention. Make sure you also know: Atlassian's product suite: Jira, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Jira Service Management, Statuspage, Opsgenie; Product-led growth model: no traditional sales team, products sell themselves through adoption; The Atlassian cloud migration strategy and the sunset of Server products. Allow 4-6 weeks for the full process.
What are common mistakes in Atlassian PM interviews?
Common red flags that Atlassian interviewers watch for include: Not knowing or embodying Atlassian's core values; Lacking experience with or understanding of B2B SaaS products; Being ego-driven or unable to demonstrate collaborative leadership; Not understanding product-led growth and how it differs from sales-led growth; Being unable to discuss developer workflows or software team productivity; Giving dishonest or overly polished answers (violates "no bullshit" value); Not having used Atlassian products and being unable to discuss them with depth. To stand out, focus on: Know and embody Atlassian's five core values — they are central to every interview evaluation; Understand product-led growth deeply — it is fundamental to how Atlassian operates; Think B2B: buyer vs. user dynamics, enterprise adoption cycles, security requirements.
How long does the Atlassian PM interview process take?
The Atlassian PM interview process typically takes 4-6 weeks from initial recruiter screen to final decision. This includes 4 stages: Recruiter Screen (30 minutes), Hiring Manager Screen (45-60 minutes), Onsite Interviews (Virtual or In-Person) (4-5 hours (4 rounds)), Final Decision (1-2 weeks (no candidate involvement)). Timelines may vary depending on team urgency and candidate availability.
About the Author

Aditi Chaturvedi
·Founder, Best PM JobsAditi is the founder of Best PM Jobs, helping product managers find their dream roles at top tech companies. With experience in product management and recruiting, she creates resources to help PMs level up their careers.