Atlassian P50/P40 interview experience.

Atlassian P50 / P40 Interview Experience

YOE: 8+ years
Prep time: ~3 months

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Karat Qualifying Round 1

Format:

• 5 design questions (each ~2–3 mins)
  • All scenario-based.
  • Example: What will you do in a case where the latency is high? What all optimisations can be done in that scenario?

Coding Question:

Given a string and a target number, count characters and split into lines without breaking words.

Example:

Str = "Hey there. Hello world"
Target = 10
Output:
[
"Hey there.",
"Hello ",
"world"
]

My experience:

• Had a brain-fade moment. Couldn't complete it despite preparing for this question.
• Ran into time limits.

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: No hire
• Actual: No hire

Note:

• Checked with Atlassian recruiter and got a chance to redo the round.

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Karat Qualifying Round 2 (Redo)

Format:

• Same style of design scenario questions.
• Coding question (forgot the exact one).

My experience:

• Completed the question.
• Handled all edge cases.

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: Hire
• Actual: Hire

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DS Round

Question:

• All O(1) Data Structure – Leetcode

My experience:

• Initially gave an O(log n) solution.
• Interviewer asked to optimize to O(1).
• Struggled with O(1) approach, complicated the code a bit, hurt readability.
• Interviewer was helpful, guided me in places.

Follow-ups:

1. Reduce time complexity.
2. How would you improve readability?

Suggestions:

• Be clear when explaining solutions.
• Prioritize code readability.
• Interviewers check line-by-line quality and complexity.

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: Strong Hire
• Actual: Lean Hire

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Coding Round

Question:

Write scalable and extensible code for a subscription management service.

Scenario:

• JIRA: $10/month
• CONFLUENCE: $7.5/month
• BITBUCKET: $8/month
• Users can buy any combination.
• For a given year, calculate monthly billing based on usage.

Follow-ups:

1. How would you handle discounts?
2. How would you handle trial periods (extensible design)?
   • Example:
     • JIRA: 14 days
     • CONFLUENCE: 30 days
     • BITBUCKET: 7 days

Suggestions:

• Be ready to write clean, extensible code in your chosen language.
• Interviewers look at how many lines you'd need to change to support new requirements.

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: Strong Hire
• Actual: Strong Hire

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System Design Round

Question:

Design a tagging system that supports adding tags across different products in Atlassian. Consider the scale of adding tags is heavy.

My experience:

• Prepared for scalability discussions (partitioning, caching, etc.).
• Interviewer focused primarily on API design and DB schema.
• Spent a lot of time on API details.
• Didn't get to cover scalability deeply.
• Overall went fine, but had a few hiccups in API design.

Suggestions:

• Take your time explaining.
• Be clear and methodical.
• Even one hiccup gets noted and can lead to "no hire" or a downgrade.

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: Hire
• Actual: Lean Hire

Note:

• Got downgraded from P50 to P40 after this round.

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Managerial Round

Focus:

• Walkthrough of projects.

Suggestions:

• Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result).
• Tell your experience like a story.

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: Hire
• Actual: Hire

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Values Round

Focus:

• Behavioral questions.

Suggestions:

• Again, use the STAR method.
• Keep answers crisp—5 to 10 mins max per question (unlike the Managerial round where detail is welcome).

Verdict:

• Self-assessment: Hire
• Actual: Hire

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Final Status

• Overall feedback: Good to go based on the rounds.
• Currently waiting on feedback from the hiring committee and team matching.

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Key Takeaways and Suggestions

• For design/coding rounds, practice explaining your solution clearly, with trade-offs.
• Be ready for real-world scenario questions that test your judgment, not just algorithms.
• Prioritize readability and extensibility in code—think how it evolves with requirements.
• For system design, ask clarifying questions up front: "Do you want to focus on APIs, DB design, or scaling?"
• Use the STAR method for behavioral and managerial rounds.
• Manage your time carefully in Karat rounds—practice keeping calm under time pressure.

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I hope this post helps others in their preparation. Feel free to ask if you want more detail about any round!