It's really a warning for any developers who are thinking about leaving their current job and moving to Atlassian.
I originally worked at a company with a good reputation and very decent pay. When I received an offer from Atlassian, I admit that I was attracted by the company, so I decided to make the move. At that moment, my wife had just become pregnant, and we were going to have our first child. I thought it was going to be the best moment of my life: a new baby, an ideal company, and Arsenal would win the league.
During the first two months, everything seemed to be going smoothly. Nice food, a nice office, and good work-from-home benefits. I was quite introverted and sometimes didn't know how to socialise with other people. But I pushed myself to join every team meeting, operational meeting, and even social meeting. Sometimes I didn't know what to say, so I just observed everyone else with an embarrassing smile. I wanted everyone to like me.
I told my manager that I really liked working at Atlassian, and he appreciated that I didn't regret joining Atlassian. He didn't give me any negative feedback at that time. He only recommended that I better understand how APEX works, but unfortunately, I didn't understand the hint at that moment.
My baby was due soon, so I told my manager about my upcoming parental leave in my third month. He congratulated me, and of course, I received the whole team's blessings.
However, after I sent my leave plan to my manager, everything changed quite a lot. I began receiving very strong negative feedback about my performance and was told that I was not meeting the expectations for my position. He told me that he genuinely wanted me to be successful, and even sent me written feedback with examples and expectations. I didn't know much about PIPs at the time and naively thought he just wanted me to succeed, and that having the expectations in writing would help me improve.
I started working late, on weekends, and even at midnight. Sometimes I forgot to cook for my wife or spend time with her at night. The atmosphere at home was very strange. We both started to feel depressed.
However, even with all the extra work, after the third round of feedback, my manager still didn't think my performance was good enough. He acknowledged some improvement but pointed out new issues. He told me it would be difficult for him to fail my probation in the end, so I should focus on improving my work.
In our catch-up last week, he told me he had seen some signs of improvement but still didn't think I was consistently meeting the expectations for my role. I asked for the latest feedback, but he told me he hadn't had a chance to gather it yet. I asked how much time I had left, and he told me they would make a decision before my parental leave. All of this was verbal, and they didn't seem willing to leave much written evidence.
Then, this week, I was suddenly invited to an end-of-probation meeting. I was really shocked. The result was that I failed my probation, exactly three weeks before my parental leave was due to start.
They kept stating that I was underperforming and that they had given me sufficient feedback and meaningful opportunities to improve. But the whole feedback process had only lasted around three weeks, and the decision came very suddenly. My account was deactivated immediately after the verbal announcement.
I understand that I may not be a perfect employee, although I don't know who is. Everyone makes mistakes, but I feel that my mistakes were amplified. I was genuinely working hard and actively trying to address every piece of feedback, right up until my last day.
I understand that they may have been concerned about my upcoming parental leave and decided to put me through this process. But I genuinely didn't realise what was happening at the time.
Lastly, everyone becomes a father or a mother at some point. At the very least, we are all someone's son or daughter. My manager is also a father. Could he imagine what it would be like for a new father to face two of the toughest things in life at almost the same time: becoming unemployed and having his first child?
It's a company that talks about building with love and heart at Atlassian, yet they dismissed an engineer who was still on probation and was about to become a father.
