How can I hit the ground running at a bigger company?

Question

I recently accepted an offer as a full-stack developer for Atlassian (P4). I have about 2 years of experience.

My first company was about 12 people (all engineers, no teams) and my current company is about 400 people (about 20 engineers, with my team size being 5 people). The team I'm moving to at Atlassian has about 100 engineers in total, and the team I will be on should have around 10 engineers I have been told. The hiring manager said that the teams are made up mostly of mid-level and senior engineers.

What can I do to make sure I get up to speed in ample time and be able to make an impact? I would like to become very career focused starting with this job and focus on advancement. My main concern is that maybe my experience in only smaller teams at smaller companies will cause friction for me as it will be a big adjustment.

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

Transitioning from a small company to a massive company like Atlassian can definitely be a big culture shock. Here are the resources I recommend:

"Advice for someone joining big tech from a non big tech background?" - This covers the main mindset shifts behind making this small company -> large company jump.
"Started my 1st FTE SWE job and been on my team for just a few weeks - What should I do?" - A standard onboarding "roadmap" for any new engineer. The question is from Google, another massive tech company, so it should all apply.
"Expectations at different levels ( Junior vs Mid )" - Since you're joining Atlassian as a mid-level engineer, this should be helpful understanding the expectations of your level.

As a bonus after going through the above 3, it seems like there is a good pool of senior engineers to potentially mentor you (you could also find an engineer on the higher-end of P4 to help here). Here's some advice on how to find a proper mentor in your company. I wouldn't worry too much about this in your first month though - This is something that's more 2-3 months out after you join.

How can I hit the ground running at a bigger company?

Discussion