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Atlassian Sales Development Representative (SDR/BDR) Interview Questions

30 real practice questions for the entry-level Sales Development Representative (SDR/BDR) role at Atlassian (Developer Tools), spanning behavioral, problem solving, role knowledge, situational, and stakeholder. Open the sales funnel: prospect, qualify, run outreach and discovery, and book meetings for account executives. The first 3 questions below include what Atlassian interviewers actually listen for, plus likely follow-ups.

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Questions
30
Categories
Behavioral (6), Problem Solving (6), Role Knowledge (6), Situational (6), Stakeholder (6)
Difficulty mix
10 easy · 10 medium · 10 hard
Avg. answer time
~4 min

Behavioral Questions (6)

  1. 1.Tell me about a prospecting tactic or outreach sequence you tried for the first time. How quickly did you test it, and what did the results tell you?

    easy~3 min

    What interviewers look for

    • Candidate describes a concrete, self-initiated experiment — a new email subject line, call script, LinkedIn sequence, or similar — not something assigned by a manager
    • They defined a quick feedback loop: set a timeline, tracked a metric (reply rate, booked meetings), and made a judgment call on whether to continue or scrap it
    • Candidate shows comfort with imperfect results and frames failure as data, mirroring Atlassian's ShipIt culture where shipping a rough prototype to learn is more valuable than perfecting it in isolation

    Likely follow-ups

    • What metric did you use to decide the experiment was worth keeping — and how long did you give it before you called it?
    • If the tactic flopped, what did you actually change on the next iteration?

    Company context

    Atlassian's ShipIt culture runs twice-yearly hackathons where teams ship prototypes in 24 hours to validate ideas fast. For an SDR, the equivalent is rapid iteration on outreach: testing a new sequence, calling it quickly, and moving on. Atlassian wants SDRs who bring that same bias toward action rather than waiting for a perfect playbook. This question also connects to 'Be the Change You Seek' — the expectation that every Atlassian employee improves their own workflow proactively.

  2. 2.Have you ever coordinated something — a group project, a club event, a sales campaign — with people in different cities or time zones? Walk me through how you kept it on track.

    easy~3 min

    What interviewers look for

    • Candidate proactively structured async communication — shared docs, written updates, or a clear status channel — rather than relying entirely on live calls to sync
    • They describe a specific coordination artifact: a shared tracker, a recurring written update, a Confluence-style document, or similar written record that kept everyone aligned without real-time meetings
    • Candidate acknowledges the cost of time zone gaps and shows they adapted — scheduling overlap windows, recording updates, or over-documenting decisions so late arrivals could catch up asynchronously

    Likely follow-ups

    • What was the biggest miscommunication you had across time zones, and what did you put in place to prevent it from happening again?
    • If one person kept missing updates, how did you handle it without a mandatory sync call?

    Company context

    Atlassian is distributed by default — teams span Sydney, Austin, Amsterdam, and beyond, and the company has operated remote-first long before it was common. SDRs at Atlassian regularly collaborate with account executives, marketing, and customer success across multiple time zones. Atlassian's internal culture relies heavily on Confluence for written documentation and async communication, and they expect every hire — even entry-level SDRs — to be comfortable operating without a daily in-person sync.

  3. 3.Tell me about a time you noticed your team's process for something — maybe tracking leads, handing off accounts, or sharing wins — was broken or missing entirely. What did you actually do about it?

    medium~4 min

    What interviewers look for

    • Candidate identified a specific process gap and didn't wait to be asked — they diagnosed the problem and proposed a fix, reflecting Atlassian's Team Playbook principle of proactively improving team health
    • They built or introduced a lightweight artifact — a shared template, a weekly standup ritual, a Trello board, a handoff checklist — and got at least one teammate to adopt it
    • Candidate measured or observed whether the change actually worked, even informally, demonstrating a feedback loop rather than just shipping and forgetting
    • They navigated any resistance or apathy from teammates to get the practice adopted, showing they can sell an idea internally — directly relevant to an SDR's persuasion skills

    Likely follow-ups

    • How did you get buy-in from teammates who didn't see the problem the same way you did?
    • Did the practice stick after you moved on, or did it fade? What does that tell you?

    Company context

    Atlassian publicly maintains a Team Playbook — a living collection of practices for improving team health and alignment — and expects every employee to contribute to improving how their team operates, not just execute their own job. For an SDR team, this might mean creating a shared objection-handling guide in Confluence, establishing a Friday pipeline review ritual, or introducing a lead-scoring template in Jira. Atlassian's 'Be the Change You Seek' value directly rewards people who spot dysfunction and fix it rather than waiting for management to act.

  4. 4.Have you ever used a product so much that you started noticing things that bugged you or could be better? Tell me about a specific moment where that happened — what was the product, what did you find, and did you do anything about it?

    medium~4 min

  5. 5.Walk me through the fastest you've ever pivoted your outreach approach mid-campaign — something wasn't working, you changed it on the fly, and you had limited data to go on. What did you decide and how did it play out?

    hard~5 min

  6. 6.Imagine you're joining an SDR team where half the reps are in Sydney and half are in Austin — you've never met most of them in person. A new product launch is coming in three weeks and you need the whole team aligned on messaging. How do you actually make that happen?

    hard~5 min

Problem Solving Questions (6)

  1. 7.Atlassian's free Jira plan has millions of users. If your manager handed you a list of 50 free-plan accounts and asked you to estimate which ones are most likely to convert to a paid plan, what would you look at first?

    easy~3 min

  2. 8.Estimate how many outbound emails you'd need to send in a month to book 10 qualified meetings. Walk me through the numbers.

    easy~3 min

  3. 9.A mid-market software company on your list has 80 engineers using Jira but your research shows they still use Google Docs and email for team documentation. How would you size the Confluence opportunity there, and what would you lead with?

    medium~4 min

  4. 10.You're three weeks into a new role and you notice that when SDRs book meetings, they just send a calendar invite — no context doc, no research notes, no handoff. You think this is costing AEs time and killing show rates. How do you figure out if you're right, and what do you do if you are?

    medium~4 min

  5. 11.Atlassian recently launched Atlassian Intelligence — AI features across Jira and Confluence. A skeptical DevOps lead replies to your email saying 'we already have ChatGPT, we don't need another AI layer.' How do you respond, and what's your actual argument?

    hard~5 min

  6. 12.Imagine your team's outbound into mid-market engineering teams has been performing well, but leadership decides to shift SDR focus toward IT operations buyers — a persona none of you have prospected before. You have two weeks before the new target list goes live. What do you do to get ready?

    hard~5 min

Role Knowledge Questions (6)

  1. 13.If you had 100 leads in Salesforce and your manager asked which 20 to call first, how would you decide?

    easy~3 min

  2. 14.Walk me through what a healthy SDR activity number looks like in a week — calls, emails, LinkedIn touches — and how you'd know if you were on track.

    easy~3 min

  3. 15.A VP of Engineering at a 500-person SaaS company replies to your cold email saying their team already uses Jira but sees no reason to expand to Confluence. How do you respond?

    medium~4 min

  4. 16.You've been running a sequence targeting DevOps leads for three weeks. Your open rate is 35% but your reply rate is 2%. What does that gap tell you, and what do you change?

    medium~4 min

  5. 17.Your AE tells you the deals you're sourcing are consistently smaller than target — lots of 20-person teams but the AE needs 200-person companies. You've been hitting your meeting quota. What's the problem and how do you fix it?

    hard~5 min

  6. 18.Atlassian sells a lot of product-led — teams start on a free Jira or Confluence plan and grow from there. As an SDR, how does that change who you prospect and what you say?

    hard~5 min

Situational Questions (6)

  1. 19.A prospect replies to your cold email and says 'We already use Trello for everything — we're good.' You've done your research and think they're actually a strong fit for Jira. What do you say back?

    easy~2 min

  2. 20.It's Thursday afternoon and you're 2 meetings short of your weekly quota. You have a list of 30 untouched leads — some are warm product-led signups on free Jira plans, some are cold outbound. How do you spend the next three hours?

    easy~3 min

  3. 21.You're mid-sequence with a Director of Engineering at a 300-person fintech company. On LinkedIn, you notice their company just posted they're hiring 15 engineers. Your manager hasn't flagged this. What do you do with that information?

    medium~3 min

  4. 22.Your AE asks you to pause all outbound for two days to help re-research a stalled enterprise deal. Meanwhile, your own meeting quota is due Friday. What do you do?

    medium~3 min

  5. 23.You've been given a new account list: 50 mid-market companies that Atlassian's data team flagged as high-fit but none of them have ever responded to any SDR outreach — some have been touched 4 or 5 times over the past year. How do you approach this list?

    hard~4 min

  6. 24.You book a meeting with a Head of Engineering and two days before the call, you find out on LinkedIn that she just left the company. The AE is counting on this meeting to fill a pipeline gap this quarter. What do you do in the next 24 hours?

    hard~4 min

Stakeholder Questions (6)

  1. 25.Tell me about a time you needed someone — a professor, a manager, a club leader — to prioritize something for you that wasn't on their radar. How did you get their attention without overstepping?

    easy~3 min

  2. 26.Have you ever been part of a handoff — passing work, information, or a customer from one person or team to another — that went badly? What broke down and what did you do?

    easy~3 min

  3. 27.You've booked a discovery call and your AE tells you the prospect's context is wrong — they're not actually a good fit for what you pitched. The prospect is already excited. How do you handle it with both of them?

    medium~4 min

  4. 28.Marketing just released a new messaging framework for Jira — personas, pain points, the whole thing. Your AE thinks it's off-base for the accounts you're both working. How do you figure out who's right and what do you do with your outreach in the meantime?

    medium~4 min

  5. 29.A senior stakeholder — say, a Head of Sales or a VP — gives you direct feedback that contradicts what your direct manager told you to do. How do you handle it?

    hard~5 min

  6. 30.You're the first SDR to spot that a cluster of your prospects — say, mid-market fintech companies — are all raising the same objection about Atlassian's cloud security. Your manager isn't tracking it yet. What do you do with that pattern?

    hard~5 min

More Atlassian interview questions