https://shitlassian.com/

 
#Shitlassian - story about how Atlassian fired me because my wife had
cancer

#Shitlassian - story about how Atlassian fired me because my wife had
cancer

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This is a real story about how Atlassian turned the life of Software
Engineer into a nightmare, and how they terminated me while I was
taking care of my wife who is fighting cancer. This story is about
lies, violations of the law, about how desperate and disposable
people are in this neo-feudalist organization - Atlassian, and about
WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER JOIN ATLASSIAN, AVOID AT ALL COSTS, NEVER USE
THEIR SOFTWARE AND RECONSIDER THEM IF YOU'RE ALREADY USING THEIR
SOFTWARE.

    Interesting fact 1: Atlassian is the only company that has words
    "shit" and "fuck" in their core values.

    Interesting fact 2: While everyday work in Atlassian might look
    normal, the reality is that when you're in times of struggle,
    you'll get screwed by their toxic managers, HRs, PeopleOps, and
    founders. In Atlassian you're disposable. Even if you feel fine
    in the company you should seriously consider other opportunities.
    Read my story to learn more

Before the storm

I joined Atlassian in the beginning 2019 as a Senior Software
Engineer (P5) in United States, San Francisco location. Life and work
were normal. I did a lot for the company, received recognition from
managers, HR, and my peers. My manager and team mates were happy with
the work I do. I even found my performance was somewhat above
average: I remember days when I was delivering ~10 points of work (1
points represents 1/2 day).

The first  red flag was when my manager said multiple times that my
salary was high. I did really well in interviews, and already had
RSUs from the previous, very well known and much older company, so
they agreed to pay me what I want.

Long-term it turned out to be a good move, since I received no
promotion or salary increase in 2.5 years. See below "Have children?
No promotion"

Have children? No promotion.

The next  red flag. After being in the company for more than a year
I had found that folks with children are less likely to get a
promotion. I had no evidence, it was a feeling. Since I had a 6 year
old child, I approached my manager with this question, and asked him:

- Is it true that engineers with children are less likely to get a
promotion?

It was a silly question, I sure that this behavior exists in
Atlassian, but nobody likes to talk about that. In Atlassian it's no
surprise and my manager said "yes, it's true". Just like that,
exposing the company to liability.

At the time I didn't take it seriously. I later raised this question
to my next manager, he didn't even bother to escalate this up, it was
so obvious. I raised this question with HR and the head of people
ops. No response.

At later point of time I discovered that other folks also experienced
that in Atlassian. Below is screenshots from Blind where somebody
failed getting promotion from P4 to P5 because of parental leave:

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It all looks like action class lawsuit, officials should seriously
look into Atlassian and investigate what's going on there. The
evidence is screaming, and the company is not playing a fair game.
I'm ready to give my testimony.

Lesson learned: never join Atlassian or expect promotion when you
have children. They don't like it.

Cancer

At the beginning of this year my wife got the bad news:

    You are a 43-year-old woman who was recently diagnosed with
    rectal cancer. After presenting with several months of
    progressive constipation, you had a colonoscopy performed which
    revealed a cancerous mass in your rectum. A biopsy of this mass
    confirmed that it was a form of rectal cancer known as colon
    adenocarcinoma

From the doctor's opinion:

    I would note that there is a rising rate of new colorectal cancer
    diagnoses in patients younger than 50-years-old in the United
    States. The reasons for this rise are not clear.

Cancer is the new reality. While everyone was enjoying their
Christmas and the New Year, we were crying. The stress was so high, I
was waking up in the morning with pain in all of my teeth.

My wife was devastated, but we quickly get on our feet and started
thinking about what to do. I remember the good vibe Atlassian
promoted everywhere, in their world-wide all hands, on social
networks like LinkedIn. They promised unlimited sick days (spoiler: 
lie), I had some unused vacation (spoiler: never able to get what
they even promised), I felt that the company is so strong, and my
contribution definitely has been great, so I had no doubts they gonna
help me. As my previous company would.

Unlimited sick days scam in Atlassian

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Here is an example of how Atlassian promoting its unlimited sick
days. The post from LinkedIn leads to a link where you can find more
info:

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Here is how "best 2021 company" profile looks like:

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I started working in 2019, at the time they were advertising
unlimited sick days in their job postings (at least on Stackoverflow
where I found them), and actually during the interview, my future
manager confirmed that.

However, it turned out that they lied. They tricked me into joining
the organization by their false promises and I changed my employment
from a well-established company to Atlassian, where lies powers
everything.

Lesson learned: Atlassian doesn't hesitate to lie. They promise perks
that do not even exist. They lie at all levels: managers, HRs,
founders.

Unlimited PTO scam in Atlassian

Atlassian is really into "unlimited PTO" scam (along with "unlimited
sick days" scam). While "unlimited PTO" is scam by itself, in
Atlassian they're taking it to the whole new level. Here is how it
works:

  * They advertise "unlimited PTO" in their job postings, LinkedIn,
    etc, pretty much everywhere. Their recruiters sell it, but they
    never mention it's up to their managers to decide whether or not
    they allow you to take your PTO.
  * When I joined, my manager told me exactly how many days I have:
    "federal holidays + 20 days", which is considered "quite generous
    for the US" (exact quotes), but don't get tricked, because...
  * It's only when and if your manager approves that. My experience
    shows that they do not approve PTOs, and it's only a lure they
    use to attract workforce.

When I requested my PTO, the manager just said "no". Not because I
took too much PTO in the past - I haven't taken any for quite some
time. It's just "no" because they can. He didn't explain too much,
just sent me a link to their policy, where they say how exactly it is
"unlimited" - it's quite limited.

The first time I asked my manager about using my PTO to take care of
my spouse:

- Can I take some of my PTO, I should have plenty, to take care of my
wife? - I said.

- No, it's not even a question, because you won't be using it as a
vacation, right? Technically you won't be on PTO, so take a medical
leave.

It sounds very touching, but I didn't recognize the trick here. They
wanted me to use my medical leave, because they didn't want to pay
for the PTO I earned.

I was able to get only 10 days of PTO in 1.5 years. I was requesting
it for 2 months, talking to my manager, the manager of my manager, to
people ops. Imagine like hitting the wall every time you ask for it.
And you're getting a link "here is our policy", instead of PTO:

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There is a lot you can say from this email:

  * they say "is more generous". It's so generous, you can only
    request 10 days in 1.5 years
  * "however you manager may need to deny your request" - this is how
    it's gonna work for you in Atlassian, for "business reasons",
    which are (of course) more important that a human life
  * "team short on resources, including Rio" - that guy was a
    manager, who didn't let me use my hard-earned vacation, took
    himself 1 month of PTO, came back and gave his notice. He left
    the company, and Sean, who is the manager of my manager Rio,
    approved that. But didn't approve vacation I earned.

Lesson learned: there is a lot of favoritism in the company. If you
make good jokes with your manager, you'll get your vacation approved.
If you're taking care of your loved one, you're fucked.

Covid and cultivating a caring company culture scam in Atlassian

Mike Cannon-Brookes lying to Atlassian employees in a Zoom meeting:

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Let's be honest, Covid has been a challenging time for all of us with
no exception. It's no surprise engineers from tech companies try to
find ways to overcome depression and burnout. Below is the only one
example of outcry among multitude others you can find on Blind:

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Founders cultivate fake caring company culture. You see these lies
everywhere. Mike (one of the founders) says "No Atlassian [employee]
should hesitate to put their well-being on us". Covid itself was a
struggle for lots of people. For me circumstances were much more
challenging:

  * Covid times
  * Child attending school from home
  * Spouse diagnosed with cancer
  * Atlassian forced me to move to a new team, with new language and
    technology I had no experience with, blocked the ways for me
    going back (I tried and was said "nobody likes those who jump the
    ship")
  * No vacation was provided
  * All of the above happened at the same time

And the "caring company culture" for me turned out in employment
termination because I didn't deliver enough points while I was taking
care of my spouse who was barely moving and recovering at home after
the surgery

Lesson learned: lies are massive. Founders do not hesitate to lie.
How they can promise (exact quote) "No Atlassian [employee] should
hesitate their well-being on us", while they terminate employees who
struggle with deadly disease?

Employment law violations in Atlassian

I performed over 100 technical interviews in Atlassian, was
recognized by HR team as one of the best interviewers, got their
kudos, including monetary recognition at the time my manager already
said that he's not happy with my performance at work. Personally, I
like doing interviews and always cared about the candidate
experience. At least I tried to make people enjoy the process.

However, I stopped doing any interviews, and one of the reasons is
hiring law violations in Atlassian. For example, we were hiring one
lady for a P4 role. Everyone in interview debrief provided positive
technical feedback.

However, at the end of the interview manager said: "We have just
started hiring, and this is one of the first candidates we're
interviewing. I don't want to hire the first person out there, just
kinda want to compare". She passed all the technical rounds, everyone
said she is strong enough to be a P4 engineer, but they said she's
not a good fit! The coordinator quickly jumped in and saying that the
lady "is probably not a good fit", "not the right time", and "we will
encourage her to apply the next time".

Lesson learned: Atlassian managers and HR don't hesitate to violate
the law, they don't care about employees and candidates. Managers and
HRs are covering each other. They're the kings and queens in this
org. ICs and small little people are disposable.

Gaslighting in Atlassian

They will gaslight you all the way. One of the examples of what my
manager said:

- What is your plan to be back senior engineer on the team again?

They didn't demote me, and I was still employed as Senior Software
Engineer. Actually, it even was in the middle of our treatment,
between chemo and radiation, which made things more cruel. They asked
this question multiple times.

At the same time my manager said about the PTO I earned and cannot
use:

- I can't give you PTO, it needs to be approved, we just lost one
senior engineer, we can't afford to lose another one, we have
deadlines.

Note that he doesn't challenge the fact that I have PTO, which kinda
confirms my point that I had those PTOs earned. He says that they've
lost senior engineer, and they want me to work without PTO, and
pretty much emphasized that their deadlines are more important that
deadly disease we were dealing with.

"Deadlines" point is bullshit by itself, because the same manager who
didn't approve the use of vacation I earned got himself one month of
PTO and left the organization right after that.

Lesson learned: yes, they know you earned your vacation. They are
well-aware of their 20 days per-year policy they promised. They just
don't let you use it. They gaslight you like you do not belong to the
place you call work anymore, regardless of your achievements in the
past.

Severance package in Atlassian

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Atlassian offered me 6 weeks of severance with conditions that 1) I
don't sue them and 2) I will not share the truth about what had
happened. You can imagine how families are desperate in Atlassian,
and can take that money, while neo-feudals like Mike and Scott take
advantage of their circumstances and silence them.

Lesson learned: Atlassian founders Mike and Scott build fake caring
company culture while in reality they fail, try to hide it, and offer
severance package to silence people.

Atlassian doesn't want to pay what they owe

(coming soon)

What other people think

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Don't stop here

Spread the word, spread the information online, use #shitlassian
along with #atlassian hash tags. When you ever see the pictures of
founders, don't hesitate do fix the images with drawing them all big
noses for their lies, lack of empathy and compassion.

Update history

Update history:

9/15 - initial version

9/16 - added chapter about employment law violations in Atlassian

9/16 - added gaslighting chapter

9/16 - added chapter about severance package in Atlassian

* * * That's not it, folks. More to come. I have lots of other
information, and will release more details soon * * *