Diversity & Inclusion at Atlassian

At Atlassian, we stand for teams. We believe behind every great achievement, there is a team. It's teams that landed the Rover on Mars, built the first electric car and developed aural implants that allow people to hear for the first time. That's why we focus every day on unleashing the potential in every team. That includes our own.

Genius happens when people from different backgrounds come together to tackle tough challenges. Diverse and inclusive teams drive innovation and greater individual and team performance. We know that intuitively and the research backs it up. That's why we decided to focus our diversity report on what matters most: teams.

We decided to look more broadly at the diversity within our teams. You'll see more categories, in more detail. This allows us to understand--and be transparent about--our areas of greatest strength and weakness. It allows us to discover if people from different backgrounds and identities actually interact. It lets us adapt our programs to meet the specific needs of our teams. To diversify our approach, if you will.

We also decided to show you data at the company level, but think it's only part of the story. An increase in representation doesn't necessarily mean an increase in diversity. That's a critical distinction to make. If diversity is concentrated in a few teams, we're unlikely to realize the benefits.

We're also excited to share with you the framework we've been using to think about diversity. We're calling it 'n-Space'. What does it mean? It means we recognize there are a limitless number of ways we can be different from each other. It's recognizing and celebrating those differences that will drive progress.

This framework is the only way to be truly inclusive. It's flexible enough to accommodate the standard categories we think of in this discussion, celebrate the uniqueness of Atlassians from well-represented groups, and factor in how different aspects of our identity overlap to influence our experiences. It's only by embracing the complexity of this issue that we can achieve a simple goal: to reach our potential.

So how are we doing?

While we're not yet where we want to be, we are moving in the right direction. In the last year, we made changes that allowed us to create the most diverse group of Atlassians yet. We partnered with outside organizations to source new talent and standardized our interview process. We offered training on unconscious bias. We formed new employee resource groups to create communities for Atlassians all over the world.

Those efforts drove improvements in "the numbers", but they're a lagging indicator. This year's engineering interns--tomorrow's Atlassians--were 46% women. We more than doubled the number of Black and Latin@ Atlassians in our U.S. offices. We're confident we're laying the foundation for even greater success in the future.

We'll keep you updated as we go.

Cheers,
Mike & Scott