So what exactly is it like to work and have fun at Atlassian?
Atlassian is a fast paced and exciting work environment that stays true to our entrepreneurial roots. We work hard
everyday to create useful products that people lust after, but we also know how to have fun.
Atlassian wins a Hewitt Best Employer 2009 Highly Commended Award – March 2010
I'm happy to share some good news with you! Atlassian Sydney was awarded a Hewitt Best Employer Highly Commended award last week as part of their 2009 study. As part of the process, we undertook an opinion survey of our staff with our results showing we have a fantastic engagement score of 87% (well above the Best Employer average engagement rate of 80%).
Hewitt explains a few benefits of high engagement below:
High engagement at Hewitt Best Employers not only relates to greater discretionary effort, more rewarding customer relationships and greater job commitment, it also promotes better talent through a stronger company reputation. Employees are not only saying great things to customers, they are also saying great things to people they know.
We were 1 of 110 Australian and New Zealand companies who participated in Hewitt's study to identify Best Employers. In 2009, Atlassian was also highly commended as an Employer of Choice (for less than 1,000 employees) in the HR Leadership awards. We were also happy to be recognised as finalists in the following HR awards:
A large part of this comes from sticking to our values and constantly improving and innovating our HR practices.
I think these acknowledgements recognise Atlassian as an awesome place to work. We are still recruiting people to join our team - come and find out yourself!
Pictured:The Sydney Talent team (left to right): Sarah Nguyen, Joris Luijke and Marie Carigliano
Gingerbread houses, the Atlassian way – December 2009
Black Friday, the Super Bowl, dinner with the in-laws - the holidays are always good for some competition. In keeping with that theme, the Atlassian San Francisco office decided to follow our annual Halloween pumpkin carving contest with an inaugural holiday gingerbread house building competition.
The rules: each team gets a bona fide gingerbread house kit, and $10 to buy supplies. Everything added to the house must be edible.
Before we get to the results, we thought we'd pass along a few tips from the experience:
- RTFM: those teams that thought making icing was a piece-of-cake (okay, strange pun) struggled. Add too much water and you run out of mortar; too little and the darn thing won't set.
- Gingerbread tastes really, really bad: a few of us got hungry during the build and tried to eat part of our houses. Trust us: it's not worth it.
- Don't wait until the last minute: the biggest underestimation most made was around how long these things take to build, especially when competing against people that are willing to pull out all the stops (see below for examples). If you want to win, start early. Nothing kills a good eggnog buzz like a caved in gingerbread roof.
- throw away the blueprint: following the box is going to yield you one very boring square gingerbread house, adorned with gumdrops and jelly beans. If you want to win this puppy, you have to go off-road. Just when everyone is expecting you to pull out the little ski chalet with marshmallow topping, you throw down the Taj Mahal with stained glass from melted Jolly Ranchers. Dream big.
So, without further adieu, the results of the inaugural Atlassian gingerbread house competition:
Admirable entries that didn't win:
Lots of great ideas here, and some very creative use of materials.
First up, the Polar Bear House. Surprised this team pulled this out, considering the Polar Bear ate up half of their $10 allowance.
A Gypsy caravan. Technically, the x-mas lights aren't edible, but we let it slide.
A bunch of us like to play board games during lunch, so the House of Cards house won some votes:
A tribute to our Amsterdam office, the Redlight District House, complete with a risque silhouette etched from a fruit roll-up and snow people embarrassing themselves:
The Golden Gate Bridge house, with two halves of lettuce representing the Marin Headlands and Presidio, and blueberries representing the rough waters of the bay.
This was a close runner-up, an almost exact replica of our office building at 375 Alabama Street in San Francisco. The bus in front was actually parked outside of the office that day.
And the winner:
The Beach Chalet house, with roof of bay leaves, a blue ocean of jello powder, and a beach of brown sugar.
Not sure what we'll do for Valentine's Day, but holidays around this office certainly aren't dull. Happy holidays from Atlassian.
Movember @ Atlassian: MO with the MOst Announcement – December 2009
I'm going to keep this post short and sweet and let the results do all the talking.
Last week we opened up the voting for you to decide who should take home the three annual Atlassian Movember awards. You've had your say and the winners are...
The Sydney MO with the MOst
Confluence Developer, Jonathan Gilbert, took out this gong by the narrowest of margins with his Chevron stache.
The ReMOte MO with the MOst
Our BDM, Todd Revolt, was the favourite all along. He took it out with a staggering 43% of the vote with his porn star mo.
Thanks for coming in today
I think this one might have been rigged (there's no way I should have been in the top three), but nevertheless, can everyone please join me in saying to our Technical Sales Engineer, Kevin Williams, "thanks for coming in today, Kevin".
Well that's it for this year! Thanks to all the Mo Bro's that participated and helped us raise ~$9,000 in support of men's health. Also, we can't forget to thank all the wives, girlfriends, and partners who put up with supported their men through Movember.
Until next year...what stache will you be growing?
The Dundee Arms is Open for Business – November 2009
"The Dundee Arms is Sydney's fifth oldest pub. Built in the 1840s, it served the ships and warehouses clustered around Darling Harbour and the shopkeepers in the Corn Exchange next door.
Rich in history, the Dundee Arms has been home to many interesting residents including T.J. 'Buttie' McMahon - grandfather of Australian Prime Minister Sir William McMahon, and award-winning artists Rod Shaw, Graeme Inson, and Ivy Shore.
Today the walls are decorated with many paintings and drawings that played part in the pub's vast history. Visit us for a bar meal or a quiet beverage and make sure you ask the bartender to tell you a tale of yesteryear."
As of today, the two floors above the Dundee Arms are inhabited by Atlassians! We're expanding to make room for 32 new engineers, and what better choice of premises than the pub right next door? You don't find many offices with four different kinds of beer on tap.
The Sydney Morning Herald says "the beer looks absolutely huge" because "the frothy stuff comes in great big whopping pint pots". In a hot Sydney summer, that's just the stuff to finish off the week with.
Sound like a great place to work? In addition to making kickass software, Atlassian offers 20% time, a fun entrepreneurial environment, and a holiday before you start. We're hiring.
Photo copyright Arup Maity.
Halloween Comes to Atlassian – November 2009
Last Friday the San Francisco office got dressed up and broke into teams to carve up some pumpkins! So much fun (and we've got the photos to prove it):
Support Engineer, Jonathan Costello is beheaded?!!?1!?
Channel Coordinator, Trisha Hong, plays Alan from the movie "The Hangover"
A beer pumpkin!
Customer Advocate, Sherrie Ladegast, dressed as a geisha
Office Administrator, Rochell Lopez, with Tina as Crulla de Vil
Marketing Monkey, Morgan Friberg, as Carl Fredricksen from the film "Up"
Support Triage Engineer, Marian Finch, is a bunch of grapes
To see a bunch more photos from Atlassian's Halloween festivities, check out these photos on Flickr.
Want to see more?
Check out what we've done in the past
(Note: no staff or animals were permanently harmed in the making of this page. All merriment is genuine and unscripted.
Yes — it is possible to have fun at work!)
