Introduction
**Atlan** is a premier, hyper-growth data enterprise platform valued at $750 million after a massive Series C backed by top-tier VCs like Meritech and GIC. It acts as the AI-driven "central nervous system" for enterprise data stacks, unifying metadata, data governance, and AI-agent context across massive distributed ecosystems for elite global clients like Cisco and Unilever. With 7x revenue growth over the last two years, it is a dominant, top-tier engineering destination building cutting-edge infrastructure at the intersection of data orchestration and agentic AI.
I came across Atlan through Linkedin back in my 2nd year, when I was scrolling through my feed (lucky). My seniors who were working at top tier MNCs like PayPal and those who'd cracked GSoC already knew about the company's massive reputation and they'd told me and it had one of the world's best work cultures. I was astounded and yet a bit skeptical.
I reached out to engineers who were working at Atlan through Linkedin and introduced myself and my work over coffee chats. Initially when I had applied earlier in 2025, I couldn't get in. This time I got news that hirings were open for interns and I knew I had to try one last time.
Round 1: Screening
Since there were lots of applications, they had to introduce this round for my recruitment cohort where I had a chat with the founding team. I was asked to introduce myself, and explain the work I had done in my previous internships in short, alongside explaining any of my favourite particular projects. Also I had to mention my open source portfolio and project under LFX. "Every person at Atlan has a superpower" was one of my favourite lines when I told them I had a keen interest in cybersecurity despite the internship being for AI native builders. My next round was taken by a person from the security team hence.
Round 2: 2nd Screening (security focused)
Since my internships were in security, I was asked to explain my work in depth. I explained about how I used to build and export labs, CVEs, mitigation strategies in case of vulnerabilities, alternative approaches to defenses and attack vectors. This time, we had a more in-depth discussion about my projects that combined AI and security. Also I was asked about approaches on how to modify my projects to reach production stage. There were some questions about agentic security as well.
Round 3: Technical
One of the most critical and pivotal rounds in the process, I was given 2 active problems upon which people @ Atlan were actively working on and was asked to provide and explain my approach and solution. My GitHub was reviewed extensively in depth, from contribution activity (not graph), all the repos, follower counts, etc and there were couple of follow-up questions regarding my choice of tools and languages for particular problem statements. It was a round focused on architecture and decisions for architectural elements.
Round 4: Culture
Once again, one of the most critical rounds. This is where you're actually tested on whether you''re fit to be part of Atlan or not. I was asked about what I did during my internships, how I received and acted on feedback, how I gave others feedback, how I communicated any issue to which person depending on the urgency. I was also asked about my opinion on the effect of AI on open source and why I personally do open source. The interview also explored me on what I did outside of technical side of things, like my hobbies, childhood and stories. My experience managing student chapters, how I approached, conducted and spoke at workshops and events, how I managed societies like nexttechlabap.in.
Outcome
All in all, I think I fit like a perfect glove when it came to personality because mine matched perfectly with their values. To go 120%, have a bias for action, never being satisfied, being straightforward, unity and a problem first, solution second approach. I am now interning under their platform and security teams and have been growing 10x faster than before, because I have an environment that cares about me and introduces me to problems and tools that I could not have been exposed to without Atlan. Thanks for reading!