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Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

reuters.com

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Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#261

Post by BirdieNZ »

paxys wrote: post #235

Atlassian has 16,000 employees worldwide and reported a net loss of $257 million last year. In fact it has not had a single profitable year since its IPO in 2015. And as expected its stock price is in the dumpster, down to $75 from its peak of $440 in 2021 (-83%). So, like a lot of the tech industry this is simply a case of overhiring, overspending and general mismanagement. And like every other layoff announcement “…

This is a pretty surface level analysis; Atlassian also has stock buybacks of billions of dollars each year. It's an intentional choice to not declare a profit and pay a dividend, and instead to reinvest in acquisitions and pay shareholders via stock buybacks.

You'll find it much more interesting to look at metrics like free cashflow, which is a better indicator as to whether the company is generating more cash during operations than it spends. This is a lot closer to the layman's idea of profit, and in a small business like a restaurant or single store it's often analogous to profit. In publicly traded companies, net profit and loss are borderline meaningless.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#262

Post by BirdieNZ »

ralph84 wrote: post #119
dbbk wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean look I don't like literally any of Atlassian's products, but they are not a dying company by any measure. They print cash.

They're not dying, but they're not healthy either. They've been around for 24 years and still haven't figured out how to turn a profit.

I don't want to just copy and paste my previous comment, but this isn't how companies at this size think about declaring profits. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47347993

Hence the comment you replied to saying "they print cash". You'll find a lot of big companies work this way: high free cashflow, because they earn a lot more than they spend, but then the spare cash is either reinvested or paid out via share buybacks. Declaring a profit isn't advantageous compared to the other options available.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#263

Post by cmiles8 »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #261
paxys wrote: post #235

Atlassian has 16,000 employees worldwide and reported a net loss of $257 million last year. In fact it has not had a single profitable year since its IPO in 2015. And as expected its stock price is in the dumpster, down to $75 from its peak of $440 in 2021 (-83%). So, like a lot of the tech industry this is simply a case of overhiring, overspending and general mismanagement. And like every other layoff announcement “…

This is a pretty surface level analysis; Atlassian also has stock buybacks of billions of dollars each year. It's an intentional choice to not declare a profit and pay a dividend, and instead to reinvest in acquisitions and pay shareholders via stock buybacks. You'll find it much more interesting to look at metrics like free cashflow, which is a better indicator as to whether the company is generating more cash durin…

The only reason it’s buying back the stock is because the price has been destroyed by the company’s underperformance. Also yes buybacks will reduce profit but an unprofitable company doing buybacks is not a healthy one.

Agree with the above general assessment that this is a company doing layoffs to address years of bad decisions and underperformance, and the broader issue of SaaS valuations as folks question valuations there. Just another case of “AI” as a PR puff excuse to avoid simply admitting this is about correcting prior bad management decisions.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#264

Post by a10c »

cmiles8 wrote: post #263
BirdieNZ wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty surface level analysis; Atlassian also has stock buybacks of billions of dollars each year. It's an intentional choice to not declare a profit and pay a dividend, and instead to reinvest in acquisitions and pay shareholders via stock buybacks. You'll find it much more interesting to look at metrics like free cashflow, which is a better indicator as to whether the company is generating more cash durin…

The only reason it’s buying back the stock is because the price has been destroyed by the company’s underperformance. Also yes buybacks will reduce profit but an unprofitable company doing buybacks is not a healthy one. Agree with the above general assessment that this is a company doing layoffs to address years of bad decisions and underperformance, and the broader issue of SaaS valuations as folks question valuatio…

TIL that 20-30% revenue growth year over year is underperforming.

Atlassian does >$1B/year in free cash flow. the GAAP losses are almost entirely stock-based comp, which is non-cash. the buyback exists specifically to offset that dilution.

> buybacks will reduce profit

wrong. its a balance sheet transaction. cash goes down, shares go down.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#265

Post by simonw »

Maxious wrote: post #259
simonw wrote: post #115

Has anyone seen any hints as to the role make up of those 1,600 jobs? Would be interesting to know if they are majority engineering, or if that's a lot of sales and marketing and support and other roles in there.

Engineering including CTO. The makeup of Australian staff cannot be immediately decided due to local workplace rights laws requiring genuine consultation. > The union representing Atlassian workers, Professionals Australia, said impacted employees were told on Thursday, with a consultation process to last until 19 March and final termination expected on 2 April. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/12/atla…

Good link, thanks:

> More than 900 affected positions were involved in software research and development, a spokesperson said. Most of Atlassian’s employees work in software engineering and design, accounting for over 50% of its 13,813 full-time workforce in June 2025.

Seems to me like this detail is particularly important though:

> [Atlassian] is not profitable and has recorded millions in losses every year since 2017, including a net loss of US$42m in the last three months of 2025, up from US$38m the prior year.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#266

Post by behehebd »

bashtoni wrote: post #208
nineteen999 wrote: post #188

Yet here they are building a new skyscraper in Sydney: https://www.atlassiancentral.com.au/

A classic example of the skyscraper index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_Index

> The authors find that height cannot, in fact, be used to predict changes in GDP. However, GDP can be used to predict changes in height. In other words, the study finds that extreme height is driven by rapid economic growth, but that height cannot be used as an indicator of recessions

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#267

Post by jemmyw »

tayo42 wrote: post #145
jemmyw wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linear is great if you fit into its workflow. It's very dev orientated. I work on Aha! Develop https://www.aha.io/develop/overview which I obviously think is a great tool, especially if you're a team with a product manager.

What do you mean by fit into it's work flow?

That was the wrong word. Something about the UI for it feels quite constraining, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing once you're used to it, but at the start of using it I struggled to get what I felt was a broader view of how a project was going.

I've only used it on a side project though because I really wanted to get to know it. I know plenty of teams really love it.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#268

Post by stevekemp »

1313ed01 wrote: post #226
TutleCpt wrote: post #5

Where are the most popular alternatives to Jira?

The problem is "no one was ever fired for choosing Jira" (or Confluence). I can't imagine there is a single company that would keep using those products the moment some alternative exists that managers dare to switch to without the slightest risk of having to explain to their managers why they didn't just go with the "industry standards".

I bailed out of the interview process last summer when the company told me they use Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket for their source code.

Sure maybe nobody got fired for choosing them, but it certainly killed my enthusiasm for the potential position.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#269

Post by exsomet »

> "Our approach is not 'AI replaces people.' But it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn't change … the number of roles required in certain areas. It does," CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a memo to employees.

“AI doesn’t replace people, but it’s silly to pretend it doesn’t replace people”, says man planning to use AI to replace people.

Re: Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

#270

Post by paxys »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #261
paxys wrote: post #235

Atlassian has 16,000 employees worldwide and reported a net loss of $257 million last year. In fact it has not had a single profitable year since its IPO in 2015. And as expected its stock price is in the dumpster, down to $75 from its peak of $440 in 2021 (-83%). So, like a lot of the tech industry this is simply a case of overhiring, overspending and general mismanagement. And like every other layoff announcement “…

This is a pretty surface level analysis; Atlassian also has stock buybacks of billions of dollars each year. It's an intentional choice to not declare a profit and pay a dividend, and instead to reinvest in acquisitions and pay shareholders via stock buybacks. You'll find it much more interesting to look at metrics like free cashflow, which is a better indicator as to whether the company is generating more cash durin…

Atlassian also issues billions worth of RSUs to employees every year. The buybacks are necessary to offset that. Shareholders are getting nothing out of it, and the fact that the stock price has been in freefall for years despite the buybacks shows that.

Software companies hid behind “free cash flow” and “YoY revenue growth” and “non-GAAP profit” for years in the zero interest world. Now that the heat has turned up a notch investors can see what I said before - most of these companies are wildly overstaffed and addicted to spending.

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