Unprofessional coding interview - Atlassian

I went through Atlassian’s coding design interview recently, and the experience was surprisingly poor for a company of this scale. The exercise itself was simple: implement a small rating system where

I went through Atlassian’s coding design interview recently, and the experience was surprisingly poor for a company of this scale. The exercise itself was simple: implement a small rating system where each agent receives 1-5 ratings, maintain a running average, and return agents sorted by their average rating and number of ratings. I completed the implementation correctly, including the standard running-average calculation: newAverage = (existingAverage * existingCount + newRating) / (existingCount + 1) However, the interviewer seemed genuinely confused by this formula, a basic math concept and repeatedly questioned it, even after I walked through examples step by step. It was concerning that the interviewer assessing this problem didn’t understand the fundamental logic behind the exercise they were responsible for evaluating. A follow-up “scale-up” question asked me to extend the system to support monthly averages, grouping ratings by month and returning the monthly score. I solved that as well without difficulty, and the interviewer acknowledged I handled the extension correctly. As a matter of fact, the interviewer gave me positive feedback on the spot, saying the solution looked good and that I solved everything they asked including the scale-up question. But the final result from Atlassian was the opposite: a rejection with no explanation or feedback. When I specifically requested feedback, especially since what I was told live contradicted the official outcome, I received no feedback and was told they are not allowed to share this. Recruiter communication throughout the process was equally disappointing, often taking 2-3 business days to reply to straightforward questions, which added to the overall sense of disorganisation. Overall, The coding interview demonstrated poor preparation, inconsistent assessment, and a lack of transparency, especially when the interviewer verbally said the solution was good but the official result contradicted that with no explanation. On top of that, Atlassian only uses one interviewer each round, which increases the risk of bias or misunderstandings impacting the decision. Most companies use two interviewers to ensure fairness and reduce the chance of a single person’s confusion affecting the outcome. Combined with slow recruiter communication, the process felt unprofessional and below the standard expected of a company of this size.