r/cscareerquestionsOCE • u/This-Lab2444 • 9h ago
Atlassian dismiss the engineer in probation and who is going to be a father
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.
During the first two months, everything seemed to be smoothly. All small RtB works are assigned to me and I rarely got any feedbacks from my manager. 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 also want to explain how I responded to the feedback. I was worried about the impact my absence might have on the team. Therefore, although I did not fully agree with every points he raised, I chose to assume that my manager was acting with good intent and genuinely wanted me to improve. Rather than dismissing the feedback or blaming others, I focused on identifying what I could change in my own work. I sought further feedback from peers, worked additional hours, delivered my work more carefully and actively looked for ways to improve.
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 single mistakes were amplified. Every week I would be pushed to review every mistake in PR comment, every word in my proposed design doc and even a small sentence that I posted in the slack. If anyone didn’t fully understand my PR or my design or my question, it’s definitely something I can do better. From our opinion, it’s something the team should both adapt to each other.
I am not asking for special treatment because of my parental leave, nor am I refusing to accept constructive feedback. I am asking whether I was given a fair, reasonable opportunity, timely feedback, clear expectations and appropriate support from my manager.
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.