# Senior Principal Engineer
**Role:** Software Engineer · **Level:** P70
**Company:** [Atlassian](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/atlassian)
**Difficulty:** Very High
**Salary:** US$180000 - US$250000
**Experience:** 10 - 15
**Timeline:** ~21 days
The Senior Principal Engineer (P70) interview at Atlassian is a rigorous process designed to assess deep technical expertise, leadership capabilities, and strategic thinking. Candidates are expected to demonstrate a high level of proficiency in software design, architecture, problem-solving, and influencing technical direction across multiple teams. This role requires not only strong individual contribution but also the ability to mentor and guide other engineers, drive technical initiatives, and contribute to the overall engineering excellence at Atlassian.
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/interviews/atlassian/p70-software-engineer
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## Overall evaluation

- Technical Expertise & Problem Solving
- Leadership & Influence
- Strategic Thinking & Business Acumen

## Questions asked

- Describe a complex system you designed or significantly improved. What were the key challenges and trade-offs?
- How do you approach mentoring and developing engineers at different levels?
- Tell me about a time you had to influence a team or stakeholders on a technical decision.
- How do you balance innovation with maintaining stability and reliability in production systems?
- Walk me through your process for diagnosing and resolving a critical production issue.
- What are your thoughts on the future of [relevant technology area, e.g., cloud computing, AI/ML integration] and how might it impact Atlassian?
- Describe a situation where you had to deal with significant technical debt. How did you prioritize and address it?
- How do you ensure code quality and maintainability in a large codebase?
- Tell me about a time you failed. What did you learn from it?
- How do you stay updated with new technologies and evaluate their potential adoption?
- Describe your experience with leading technical projects from conception to delivery.
- How do you foster a culture of psychological safety and continuous improvement within a team?

## Preparation tips

### lists

- Deeply understand Atlassian's products, mission, and values.
- Review your past projects and identify key technical challenges, solutions, and outcomes.
- Practice system design problems, focusing on scalability, reliability, and trade-offs.
- Prepare to discuss your leadership experiences, mentorship approaches, and how you influence technical direction.
- Brush up on core computer science fundamentals, data structures, and algorithms, especially as they apply to large-scale systems.
- Familiarize yourself with common architectural patterns and distributed systems concepts.
- Prepare behavioral questions using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result).
- Research the specific technologies and domains relevant to the team you are interviewing for.
- Think about how you would contribute to Atlassian's engineering culture and technical strategy.

### studyPlan

- {"title":"Foundation & Company Understanding","longDescription":"Weeks 1-2: Deep dive into Atlassian's product suite (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Trello, etc.), understanding their core functionalities, target users, and underlying technical challenges. Review Atlassian's engineering blog and public statements on technology and culture. Revisit fundamental CS concepts: data structures, algorithms, operating systems, and networking, focusing on their application in large-scale systems.","shortDescription":"Weeks 1-2: Atlassian products, CS fundamentals, engineering culture."}
- {"title":"System Design & Architecture","longDescription":"Weeks 3-5: Focus on System Design. Study distributed systems concepts (CAP theorem, consensus algorithms, microservices, event-driven architectures, caching strategies, database choices). Practice designing complex systems like social media feeds, e-commerce platforms, or real-time collaboration tools. Consider scalability, availability, consistency, and fault tolerance. Review common design patterns and anti-patterns.","shortDescription":"Weeks 3-5: System Design, distributed systems, scalability, reliability."}
- {"title":"Behavioral & Leadership Preparation","longDescription":"Weeks 6-7: Prepare for Behavioral and Leadership questions. Reflect on your career, identifying key projects, leadership roles, mentorship experiences, and instances of conflict resolution or influencing others. Use the STAR method to structure your answers. Think about how you embody Atlassian's values and how you would contribute to the company's technical vision.","shortDescription":"Weeks 6-7: Behavioral questions, leadership, mentorship, STAR method."}
- {"title":"Mock Interviews & Final Review","longDescription":"Week 8: Mock interviews. Conduct mock interviews focusing on system design, behavioral questions, and technical problem-solving. Seek feedback from peers or mentors. Review any areas identified as weaknesses and refine your answers and approaches. Prepare specific questions to ask the interviewers about the role, team, and company.","shortDescription":"Week 8: Mock interviews, feedback, refine answers, prepare questions."}

## Location differences

- {"location":"Sydney, Australia","differences":{"tips":["Be prepared to discuss your most impactful technical contributions and their business outcomes.","Highlight instances where you've led significant technical change or innovation.","Showcase your ability to think about system design at a very large scale and across multiple product areas.","Demonstrate a deep understanding of Atlassian's products and their technical challenges."],"interviewFocus":["Emphasis on strategic technical decision-making and long-term impact.","Assessment of ability to drive cross-functional technical initiatives.","Evaluation of experience in scaling systems and teams.","Focus on leadership in technical problem-solving and mentorship."],"commonQuestions":["Describe a time you had to influence a team with a different technical opinion. How did you approach it?","How do you balance technical debt with delivering new features under pressure?","Walk me through a complex system you designed or significantly contributed to. What were the trade-offs?","How do you mentor junior engineers and foster a culture of learning?","What are your thoughts on the future of [specific technology relevant to Atlassian, e.g., cloud-native architectures, distributed systems]?"]}}
- {"location":"Austin, USA","differences":{"tips":["Prepare detailed examples of complex system designs and their evolution.","Be ready to discuss your approach to performance optimization and cost management.","Showcase your ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.","Emphasize your experience in leading and mentoring engineering teams."],"interviewFocus":["Focus on resilience, scalability, and operational excellence of complex systems.","Assessment of ability to lead through technical challenges and ambiguity.","Evaluation of experience in driving best practices and engineering standards.","Emphasis on strategic thinking and long-term technical vision."],"commonQuestions":["How do you handle ambiguity in project requirements and technical direction?","Tell me about a time you had to make a difficult technical trade-off that had significant consequences.","What strategies do you employ to ensure the reliability and performance of large-scale distributed systems?","How do you stay current with emerging technologies and evaluate their potential adoption?","Describe your experience with incident management and post-mortems for critical system failures."]}}
- {"location":"Bangalore, India","differences":{"tips":["Be prepared to articulate your vision for engineering excellence.","Highlight your experience in shaping technical culture and processes.","Demonstrate your ability to mentor and develop senior engineers.","Showcase your understanding of Atlassian's mission and how technology enables it."],"interviewFocus":["Emphasis on architectural leadership and technical governance.","Assessment of ability to influence and mentor across different engineering disciplines.","Evaluation of experience in driving technical strategy and roadmap.","Focus on impact and thought leadership in the engineering community."],"commonQuestions":["How do you approach architectural reviews and provide constructive feedback?","Describe a situation where you had to push back on a technical decision made by senior leadership.","What is your philosophy on code quality, testing, and CI/CD for large engineering organizations?","How do you foster a culture of psychological safety within your teams?","Discuss a time you identified and addressed a significant technical risk."]}}

## Round 1: Technical Problem Solving
**Type:** Technical / Coding · **Difficulty:** High · **Duration:** 60 min
Assess core technical skills and problem-solving abilities through coding or design challenges.
This round focuses on assessing your fundamental technical skills and your ability to apply them to solve complex problems. You will likely be asked to work through a coding challenge or a design problem that requires you to demonstrate your understanding of data structures, algorithms, and software design principles. The interviewer will evaluate your approach to problem-solving, your ability to write clean and efficient code, and your understanding of trade-offs.
**Interviewers look for:** Strong understanding of core computer science principles.; Ability to break down complex problems.; Sound judgment in making technical decisions.; Clear communication of thought process.
**Evaluation criteria:** Technical depth and breadth.; Problem-solving skills.; System design capabilities.; Analytical thinking.
**Common rejection reasons:** Lack of depth in technical knowledge.; Inability to articulate design choices and trade-offs clearly.; Poor problem-solving approach.; Difficulty in handling ambiguity.; Lack of leadership or mentorship experience.
## Questions

- Design a rate limiter for a web service.
- Implement a function to find the k-th largest element in an unsorted array.
- How would you design a URL shortening service?

## Preparation tips

- Practice coding problems on platforms like LeetCode (Medium/Hard).
- Review common data structures and algorithms.
- Think about edge cases and test your solutions thoroughly.
- Be prepared to explain your thought process clearly.

## Round 2: System Design & Architecture
**Type:** System Design / Architecture · **Difficulty:** Very High · **Duration:** 60 min
Assess your ability to design complex, scalable, and reliable software systems.
This round is dedicated to evaluating your ability to design and architect complex software systems. You'll be presented with a high-level problem and expected to design a robust, scalable, and maintainable solution. The focus will be on your understanding of distributed systems, databases, caching, messaging queues, and other architectural components, as well as your ability to articulate the trade-offs involved in your design choices.
**Interviewers look for:** Ability to design complex, large-scale systems.; Deep understanding of architectural patterns.; Consideration of various constraints and requirements.; Clear communication of design decisions.
**Evaluation criteria:** System design and architecture.; Scalability and performance.; Reliability and fault tolerance.; Understanding of distributed systems.; Trade-off analysis.
**Common rejection reasons:** Inability to design scalable and resilient systems.; Poor consideration of trade-offs.; Lack of experience with distributed systems.; Failure to address non-functional requirements (performance, availability).; Unclear or incomplete system design.
## Questions

- Design a system to handle real-time analytics for a large e-commerce platform.
- How would you design a distributed cache system?
- Design the backend for a video streaming service like Netflix.

## Preparation tips

- Study common system design interview questions and patterns.
- Understand concepts like CAP theorem, eventual consistency, load balancing, and database sharding.
- Practice designing systems for scale and high availability.
- Be prepared to discuss your past system design experiences in detail.

## Round 3: Behavioral & Leadership Interview
**Type:** Behavioral / Leadership · **Difficulty:** High · **Duration:** 45 min
Assess leadership, collaboration, and behavioral fit through past experiences.
This round focuses on your leadership, collaboration, and behavioral aspects. You'll be asked questions about your past experiences, how you've handled challenging situations, mentored team members, and influenced technical direction. The interviewer wants to understand how you operate within a team, your leadership style, and how you align with Atlassian's culture and values.
**Interviewers look for:** Evidence of technical leadership.; Ability to mentor and grow engineers.; Experience driving initiatives and influencing others.; Strong communication and interpersonal skills.; Alignment with Atlassian's values (e.g., Teamwork, Openness, Innovation).
**Evaluation criteria:** Leadership and influence.; Mentorship and team development.; Collaboration and teamwork.; Communication skills.; Problem-solving in team contexts.; Cultural fit.
**Common rejection reasons:** Lack of leadership or mentorship experience.; Inability to articulate past experiences effectively.; Poor handling of conflict or difficult situations.; Not demonstrating alignment with Atlassian's values.; Weak communication skills.
## Questions

- Tell me about a time you had to lead a team through a difficult technical challenge.
- How do you mentor junior engineers? Provide an example.
- Describe a situation where you disagreed with your manager or a senior colleague. How did you handle it?

## Preparation tips

- Prepare examples using the STAR method for common behavioral questions.
- Reflect on your leadership experiences and how you've impacted teams.
- Think about how you handle conflict, feedback, and ambiguity.
- Be ready to discuss your career aspirations and how they align with the role.

## Round 4: Strategic & Executive Interview
**Type:** Strategic / Executive · **Difficulty:** Very High · **Duration:** 60 min
Assess strategic thinking, technical vision, and organizational impact with senior leadership.
This final round is with a senior leader and focuses on your strategic thinking, technical vision, and ability to drive impact at an organizational level. You'll discuss your experiences in shaping technical strategy, influencing product direction, and contributing to the broader engineering organization. The interviewer will assess your understanding of the business context and how your technical expertise can drive significant value for Atlassian.
**Interviewers look for:** Ability to think strategically about technology and its impact on the business.; Experience in setting technical direction and roadmaps.; Capacity to influence senior stakeholders.; Deep understanding of the industry and market trends.; Proven track record of delivering significant impact.
**Evaluation criteria:** Strategic thinking.; Technical vision.; Business acumen.; Impact and influence.; Communication with senior leadership.
**Common rejection reasons:** Lack of strategic vision.; Inability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes.; Poor communication with senior stakeholders.; Not demonstrating impact at a senior level.; Failure to articulate a compelling technical direction.
## Questions

- What is your vision for the future of [specific technology area relevant to Atlassian]? How would you position Atlassian to leverage it?
- Describe a time you had to make a significant technical decision with long-term business implications.
- How would you foster innovation and technical excellence across multiple engineering teams?

## Preparation tips

- Think about the long-term technical challenges and opportunities facing Atlassian.
- Prepare examples of how you've driven strategic technical initiatives.
- Be ready to discuss your views on industry trends and their relevance to Atlassian.
- Articulate your vision for technical excellence and innovation.