Atlassian Support Engineer Interview Guide
The role of an Atlassian Support Engineer
Atlassian is a major software company that develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams. The company is known for products like Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, and Trello. If you're interested in exploring other roles at Atlassian, explore the Atlassian UX Researcher guide.
The Atlassian Support Engineer's main role shall revolve around providing excellent customer service to users of Atlassian's products. They are expected to help customers set up, administer, and debug products through professional written and verbal communication. For support roles at other leading tech companies, check out the Microsoft Support Engineer guide for similar insights.
Role
- Resolving customer issues involving code error diagnosis, debugging, validation, and root cause analysis
- Global technical escalation management to ensure customer success with Atlassian products
- Communicating to our customer base through necessary means to resolve application issues
- Enable replication and debugging of issues to verify product-related bugs
- Creation and curation of knowledge-base articles and documentation to help customers help themselves
- Improving and streamlining internal processes to make our work operationally efficient
- Development work targeted towards actively preventing customer pain
- Performing case reviews to identify trends and improvement areas and define action plans for support engineers
- Always monitoring queue health and identifying ways to address trends proactively
- Always be seeking to be precise with communication and actions
- Participating with the team to define new methods and system changes to improve the customer service level, reduce overall resolution times, and improve team efficiency and quality
- Looking at the active tickets, inbound queue, and internal meetings and plan their day/week so they give themselves the time they need for long periods of research, customer calls, ticket recaps, etc.
Skills/Qualifications required
- Industry-rich experience of 5+ yrs
- Drive to be the champion for the customer and a lack of patience for delay or lack of urgency
- Focus on customer success and team support first
- Ability to learn and teach new technologies as required
- Demonstrated ability to detect and diagnose complex and critical technical issues effectively and efficiently
- Exposure to GIT, Mercurial, or similar version control technologies
- Familiarity with CI/CD, docker and build systems such as Azure, Jenkins, or Pipelines
- Strong Operating Systems knowledge (eg: Linux, OSX, Windows)
- Familiarity with database concepts (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server or Postgresql)
- Strong networking knowledge and troubleshooting skills
- Strong knowledge of SSH and SSL protocols.
- Development or scripting experience in a major language (eg: Python, Ruby) is a huge plus
- Familiarity with log monitoring tools such as Splunk
Atlassian Support Engineer salary
- Entry-level salary: USD 165,000.
- Senior positions: USD 376,000.
- Median salary: USD 233,000 with the base component being USD 143,000, stock component being USD 64,000 and bonus being USD 25,000.
Atlassian Support Engineer Interview Guide
The interview process for the Atlassian Support Engineer role consists of 3 stages as under:
- Initial Screen (45 minutes)
- Technical Screen ( 1 hour)
- Onsite round (4 hours)
Here's a detailed look at the entire interview process, starting with the initial screen:
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Initial Screen
Overview
The initial screen is a 45-minute telephonic interaction between you and the recruiter. The initial screen is a typical get-to-know-you type of interview with the recruiter. It is aimed at assessing your cultural and experiential fit for the role at Atlassian. Questions regarding your background and previous work experience are mostly asked. If you're fresh out of college, be thoroughly prepared with your CV. Keep a crisp and convincing answer ready for questions such as "Why do you think you are best for the role?" or "Why should we hire you?" or the cliched "Why Atlassian?" question.
Technical Screen
Overview
The next round is the Technical Screen which is a telephonic interview with the company's hiring manager. This interview is roughly 1 hour long and consists of 3 sections of 20 minutes each.
- Operating System (OS) & Networking
- Database Management System (DBMS)
- Coding and Data Structures
Operating System (OS) & Networking
The first section is a test of your skills in operating systems and networking concepts. Exploring the Apple iOS Engineer, Doordash iOS Engineer and Google iOS Engineer guides might help with OS-related questions. You will be tested on how well you can troubleshoot customer doubts and issues pertaining to this area. Expect Questions on Linux, Windows, and Wifi troubleshooting.
Most asked questions on OS & Networking
- What is a Thread? What are the differences between process and thread?
- What is Virtual Memory? How is it implemented?
- What is a deadlock? What are the necessary conditions for deadlock?
- How do you configure a router?
Database Management System
This section will test your knowledge and awareness of database management concepts. Expect questions on data abstraction and data independence, database objects, multimedia database interfaces, categories of end-users, and use of DBMS in system software. SQL is a core focus, so prepare it well. You may also sometimes be given a situation question to solve on a DBMS topic.
Most asked DBMS questions
- Names some of the disadvantages of file processing systems?
- What are the three levels of data abstraction in DBMS?
- What do you understand by Data Definition Language (DDL)?
- What is a subquery in SQL, and what are its different types?
Coding and Data Structures
Interviewers may want to test your coding skills in a programming language such as Java. Also, questions on data structures topics such as arrays, linked lists, stacks and queues may also be asked.
Most asked questions on Coding and Data Structures
- What is Java construct?
- What is a field in Java?
- Write a Java code to reverse the characters in a string.
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Onsite Round
Overview
The onsite interview is a full-day event. It comprises 4 interviews of which 3 are technical, and one is a behavioural interview. Each of these interviews lasts for about 1 hour. The on-site can essentially be perceived to be an extended version of the technical interview, with an additional behavioural interview. The interview panel here consists of a hiring manager, a senior support manager, and an HR manager.
Besides technical questions on topics such as OS, networking, database management, a number of situational questions to test your behavioural aptitude and personality are asked.
Tips
- Since the job demands you to work in a customer support environment, you must be able to communicate effectively and show the same to the interviewers.
- Also, interviewers look for, and value qualities like empathy, patience and customer-centricity in potential support engineers. So, it's important to exhibit the same qualities to the interviewers.
Interview Questions
Technical
- What factors determine whether a detection algorithm must be utilized in a deadlock avoidance system?
- How does dynamic loading aid in better memory space utilization?
- How does swapping result in better memory management?
- When designing the file structure for an operating system, what attributes are considered?
- What is a Virtual Private Network (VPN)? What are its different types?
- What are the demerits of the Bus network topology?
- What is the difference between the private subnet and the public subnet?
- What do you mean by query evaluation engine?
- What is meant by fully functional dependency?
- What is the use of the self-join SQL query?
- What are the advantages of linked lists over arrays?
Behavioural
- Have you ever received any feedback for your work? How did it improve your career?
- How do you rate yourself and what's the area of improvement you have identified for yourself?
- Why do you think empathy is important to become a successful Support Engineer?
- What Atlassian values appeal to you the most?
So, this was a quick walk-through of the entire Atlassian Support Engineer interview process. If you follow the tips and guidelines mentioned here, we are sure you would crack the interview.
Thanks for reading!