Atlassian Internship Interview Experience (On Campus)

Atlassian's hiring process for summer interns began with a coding round. Students from CSE, ECE, and EE branches with a CGPA of 7 or above were eligible to participate. The process consisted of three rounds: a coding round, a technical interview, and an HR round.

Round 1: Coding Round

The coding round featured 3 DSA questions of varying difficulty:

1. Simple Binary Search – Easy level.
2. Dynamic Programming (DP) – Medium level.
3. Graph Problem – Hard level, involving a disjoint set variation.

To qualify for the interview process, candidates had to solve at least 2.5 questions. I solved:

• Two questions completely.
• The third question partially, passing 11/15 test cases.

Although I submitted my last solution with just 10 seconds to spare, accuracy was prioritized over time, which worked in my favor. Out of all participants, 9 students were selected for the interview round, including me.

Round 2: Technical Interview

The technical interview was held a week after the online assessment round. This was my first interview, and it was conducted by two invigilators:

• A ma'am, who asked the questions.
• A sir, who observed to ensure fairness and prevent malpractices.

Question Asked

The interviewer began the session without asking for my introduction and directly presented a problem:

"Design a system like YouTube where if any likes or comments come, increase the popularity; if any dislikes come, decrease it. Return the channel with maximum popularity."

My Solution

• I initially solved the problem using an unordered map.
• The interviewer then asked me to optimize the solution. She highlighted that the functions for increase popularity, decrease popularity, and maximum popularity should ideally have a time complexity of O(1) for maximum popularity.
• I revised my solution using an ordered map.

When asked about the time complexity for insert and delete operations in an ordered map, I couldn’t provide the answer as I wasn’t familiar with it at the time.

Outcome

Unfortunately, I couldn’t proceed to the next round due to my incomplete response to the time complexity question. However, I learned a great deal from the experience.

HR Round

The HR round was conducted after the technical interview. One more student was eliminated in this round. Ultimately, 3 students were selected from our college for the internship.

Key Takeaways

Understand Data Structures Thoroughly:

• Know the time complexities of operations for all commonly used data structures (e.g., ordered and unordered maps).

Optimization Matters:

• Be ready to optimize solutions and explain the thought process behind your approach.

Learn from Every Experience:

• Even if you don’t clear all rounds, treat the process as an opportunity to identify and improve your weaknesses.

While I couldn’t make it to the final selection, the experience was invaluable. It gave me insights into problem-solving, optimization, and how to handle technical interviews effectively. I hope this helps others preparing for Atlassian or similar companies. Best of luck!