Atlassian wants to hire 5,000 more Aussie staff

Australian tech darling Atlassian is looking to hire an additional 5,000 local employees in the next few years as it prepares to open its new offices in Sydney’s Tech Central.

Atlassian’s Chief of Staff Amy Glancey went on the record with Business Insider Australia last week to admit it will “be challenging” to add 5,000 Australian staffers to its books given a local skills shortage that has only been exacerbated by pandemic border closures.

“Talent has and will always be one of the key blockers for high growth tech companies in Australia or any high growth companies,” Glancey said.

“We believe when we make the decision on TEAM Anywhere that it unlocks an entirely new pool of not only Australian talent, but global talent in ways that I don’t even think we can fully imagine yet.

“It’s going to require effort and we’re prepared to put it behind it. But we know that those 5,000 people are out there.”

‘TEAM Anywhere’ is the name of Atlassian’s remote work policy – a play on its Nasdaq stock symbol, TEAM – which the company enacted in 2020 as a response to the pandemic.

It has been 18 months since that policy came into effect and now Atlassian says a quarter of its Australian workforce is now located in ‘remote’ locations at least two hours away from its Sydney HQ.

The move to permanent a work-from-home policy came despite the company’s plans to move in as anchor tenants at Sydney’s Tech Central where it is building a 180-metre hybrid timber skyscraper.

Around 4,000 Atlassian staff are expected to work from the tower after its completion which is estimated to be in 2026.

Glancey said the Tech Central precinct will help put Sydney on the map as a global technology hub.

“We know that talent attracts talent. We know that every major tech city in the world has somewhere on the map that they can point to and call home,” she said.

“We all know Silicon Valley, we all know Tel Aviv; and it’s very exciting to think that when people think of amazing global tech cities that Sydney is going to be one.”

“It’s going to be an absolute vortex of talent.”

Atlassian will present its earnings for the December 2021 quarter on Friday morning.

It will be an opportunity for the company to quell some fears of a significant tech crash after the Nasdaq tumbled last week which saw Tesla and Amazon prices drop 5 and 6 per cent respectively while Netflix was down a whopping 21.8 per cent on Friday’s trading.