Intro
This post is about my decision to re-join Atlassian in 2025, after a self-imposed career break that stretched out a little longer than I had expected.
The gist of the situation boils down to the amusing expression that you sometimes come across online – often referenced as the Programmers’ Credo. “We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought that they were going to be easy.”
My first stint at Atlassian
I joined Atlassian in August 2022 and worked as a senior developer, developing and maintaining microservices written in Java and deployed into AWS.
I didn’t have any serious issues while working there. Like many companies, there were a few blips and dysfunctional ways of working – particularly when the pivot to a reduction of middle management happened just as our team was getting used to new management.
In March 2025 I made the difficult decision to resign so that I could take on some of the workload of helping a family member going through health issues. At the time it was unclear how long I would need, so I thought that it would be more considerate to my team mates if they could back-fill my position rather than holding it open if I had opted to take the time away as unpaid leave.
Career break
From April through August I spent alternate weeks in Christchurch and Balclutha. I wasn’t a full time carer or anything like that, but I was around to take my turn visiting, transporting, and basically being present to recognise when things were improving, or slipping.
Long story short, the family member made a remarkable recovery which meant that I could return to living and working full time in Christchurch.
Back to work
Before I had left Atlassian my manager said something along the lines of, “Keep in touch, and if you ever decide to come back to Atlassian, if my team doesn’t have a position open then I will find one that does”.
So, I naturally felt as though a return to Atlassian would be a very smooth process. That particular manager left Atlassian a few months later, so I wouldn’t be able to have them vouch for me.
Around August 2025 I decided to reach out to some contacts and work out how to get back in. My hope was that I could find out about internal vacancies and get recommended in by former teammates, but that wasn’t to be.
I had to go through the entire interview process all over again, including a new additional technical screening step that was now in place and being run by an external company.
I didn’t pass the external screening on the first attempt (not unusual, apparently). This made me feel a bit rusty, so there were a few delays in scheduling of subsequent interviews.
I have an impression that the job market in New Zealand is somewhat limited for someone with my particular skills and level of experience, I like to focus on applying for one role at a time, so I was turning down approaches from recruiters from places such as Canva – which probably would have been a great fit.
It wasn’t until mid December that I had completed the full round of interviews and joined a fresh team. I’m pretty sure that I could have interviewed elsewhere and been on-boarded much quicker than four months.
No Regrets
Even though it took longer to get back into working, and that particular work got taken away through redundancy, I’m not bitter. It’s just business.
Back when Atlassian had an ambition of scaling to a workforce of 25,000 I didn’t think that was sensible, so as a small shareholder I am pleased that particular goal is no longer in place.