How Atlassian built Rovo in 6 months: systematizing developer joy, autonomy/ownership, productivity champions & reducing ship time w/ Rajeev Rajan #240
The Engineering Leadership Podcast · 2025-12-17 · 47 min
Episode notes
Rajeev Rajan (CTO @ Atlassian) shares the leadership playbook he used to transform Atlassian’s engineering culture, and how that cultural foundation directly powered the build and launch of Rovo (Atlassian’s new AI powered app). We cover how they reduced ship time from 120 days to zero, why “developer joy” is the metric that matters, and how to create a community of developer productivity champions to scale DevEx transformation. Rajeev also breaks down his principles for systematizing autonomy and empowerment, including frameworks for giving direct reports more ownership. Plus, a look at the future of Atlassian’s “Systems of Work”! ABOUT RAJEEV RAJAN Rajeev Rajan is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Atlassian. Rajeev joined the company in May 2022 and is responsible for Atlassian Engineering, IT, Security and Trust, and the Engineering Operations teams. His focus areas include the company's continued transformation to Cloud, Developer Platform, and Product lines. Additionally, he is passionate about continuing to develop Atlassian’s world-class engineering organization and making it a top choice for aspiring engineering talent worldwide.
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