My exact impression too. The article set off some alarm bells in me - it feels tad too lightweight on actual evidence of misconduct, and too rich repetitively making the same emotional points. Could be explained entirely by the author writing it in justifiable anger. Or it could be because they're trying to blow a few situations out of proportion.

I've seen plenty of posts like this landing on HN over the years, and it's not always a given the accused party is in the wrong. While my first instinct is obviously to believe the author, I'm withholding judgement until more details are clear.

EDIT:

I keep in mind an old HN drama about AirBnB, I'll try to look up details and edit them in - but what I remember to this day is, there was an angry post vilifying AirBnB, the commenters believed it fully and became very angry. As I recall, pg himself jumped in to defend AirBnB, only to be booed out. I also recall being convinced the company is strongly in the wrong. Then it turned out the situation was entirely opposite, AirBnB was in the right. I felt really stupid for jumping the gun, not waiting for full story to come out.

(And then, of course, AirBnB turned out to be a socially destructive company, so I don't like them anyway - but for different, and better thought out reasons.)

EDIT2: The AirBnB story I refer to happened in 2011, when a blogger described an extremely bad experience with AirBnB, causing one hell of a shitstorm in general startup sphere (with plenty of big names and news outlets getting involved). There was way too much written about this on HN for me to find what was the resolution now - skimming quickly I'm no longer sure which side was proven to be guilty of what. But I do recall the feeling of first being so sure in outrage, and then ashamed after discovering the story is way more complicated than what it seemed at first.

Not approving more than 10 days in 1.5 years given the circumstances is inexcusable.

Having to argue and persuade to get time off, rather than having a fixed protocol, is simply a red flag also.

>Not approving more than 10 days in 1.5 years given the circumstances is inexcusable

Atlassian should have been more flexible given the circumstances (and maybe they were! The author didn't mention the leave of absence they took, but it's mentioned in their manager's email denying them taking "Vacay Your Way" right after getting back from a leave), but asking for 2 months of PTO all at once is a lot different than taking 9 weeks over 1.5 years. The author did not say they were denied taking any more than 10 days of PTO over that 1.5 years, they were pissed because they felt they were "accruing it" when they were, in fact, not.

But not illegal

If you watch for it, you'll notice that pattern is common with discrimination claims. It's self destructive too because it prevents self analysis and improvement if you believe you didn't get a promotion or whatever because of discrimination. Then the cycle repeats.

+1000

This article should be read with a huge grain of salt.

They forget to mention (or I missed) the 30 odd days of “no questions asked” special leave we got over the past 2 years.

They also don’t mention how, by policy, small leave applications are approved, no questions asked.

I’m a current P5 SWE at Atlassian and whilst I agree that going from P5 to P6 tends to be difficult, I can’t say I’ve observed any of the other aspects mentioned in this post.

I personally have a larger frustration with there being too much time off as I actually enjoy the work I do

Until your last paragraph, I believed what you were saying.

I think it's perfectly possible for one person to be on their org's good side and another to walk into every single branch of a hostile bureaucracy. Especially in large companies, which Atlassian certainly is now. I've seen that in action, side by side, even within the same team.

Neither invalidates the other, because a large company is perfectly capable of both at the same time.

> Until your last paragraph, I believed what you were saying.

I have no connection to Atlassian, but I've been "forced" to take time off, which I neither needed nor wanted. If I'm working a lot it means I'm enjoying it.

I have also taken quite a bit of PTO when needed by the way; I'm not afraid of doing so. But I don't really like the "one size fits all model" when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I have also been forded to take some vacation. It was late in the summer, and I think my boss started to feel that HR might be coming down on him if he let me work all summer :)

You and me both. Prime example of astroturfing.

> I personally have a larger frustration with there being too much time off as I actually enjoy the work I do

Can't you just not take the time off? If it's mandatory I'm sure you could still work while "off". Honestly I have an extremely hard time relating to this sentence.

Where I am we do require people to take vacations, usually if they are going to hit their PTO accrual cap (ie, they really have not been taking vacations).

accrued leave is a liability that a company doesn't want too much of.

For people leaving, accrued leave is something that the person could ask to be paid out in cash, or they can take the leave prior to quitting.

As an org grow larger and larger, they'd need to prepare for these to crunch together - and thus, by forcing leave, they can cap the amount of reserves (cash, and people to take over) they need. It's understandable, but of course, frustrates the employee.

> I’m a current P5 SWE at Atlassian and whilst I agree that going from P5 to P6 tends to be difficult

Which... is fine? It should get harder and harder to climb the ladder the farther you climb, because -- especially as an individual contributor -- it's hard to increase your impact on the company more and more as you climb. And on the flip side, I see plenty of people getting promoted before they are really ready, and become ineffective -- and worse, counter-effective -- in their new role. Then they either languish, get fired, or get fed up and quit. Or worse, they stick around and make things more difficult for everyone else.

So Atlassian actually has 30 days of PTO instead of unlimited, yeah?

Or those "no question asked" is unpaid time off? But then it wouldn't make send because if you already have unlimited PTO why would anyone take unpaid TO.

Aren't these up to the manager to approve?

A different manager can make a completely different experience in a single company. A rule of thumb when things blow out of proportion is that the manager is quite likely to have been a catalyst.

The PTO is unclear in my opinion. There may be something depending on what's written in the contract and what jurisdiction he is in. There's way too little information to judge.