Why Atlassian Trust India with Full Product Ownership

Global capability centres (GCCs) in India today span a wide spectrum of services, covering research and development (R&D), artificial intelligence (AI), digital transformation, as well as tax, finance, compliance, sustainability reporting, and cybersecurity. 

A PwC study noted that while GCCs and their headquarters often align on strategy, execution gaps remain in areas such as governance, resource allocation and performance metrics. These gaps can quickly translate into missed opportunities. Closing them could enable 3-4% higher compound annual growth in GCC value generation beyond current projections.

Moreover, GCCs are increasingly transforming their GCCs in India into internal innovation studios, building enterprise-style startups within the enterprise itself. This shift enables faster product development, tighter control over innovation and measurable cost advantages by tapping into India’s deep technical talent pool.

Talking to AIM, Rajeev Rajan, CTO of Atlassian, mentioned, “Our philosophy is very different from many GCCs. We believe in making products in India, with leaders in India who are global leaders.”  

Atlassian, the global collaboration software giant, entrusts end-to-end ownership of entire product lines to its teams in India. From a modest 60-member team in 2018, the company has grown to more than 2,500 employees across the country, with nearly 75% working in R&D roles. For Atlassian, Rajan explained, India is now a global centre of product ownership and innovation.

Building in India

A striking example is Atlassian’s IT Service Management (ITSM) product line, largely built and led from Bengaluru. Indian engineering and product leaders manage teams locally as well as globally, spanning the US, Australia and beyond. Similarly, the company’s commerce platform, which processes Atlassian’s multi-billion-dollar global revenues, is also primarily developed in India.

This confidence is a natural outcome of India’s fast-growing talent landscape. “The talent pool here is amazing, especially in AI. One statistic I saw said 50% of R&D workers in India are advanced AI users, more than any other country in the world. That excites us,” Rajan noted. From engineers to product managers and design leaders, Atlassian has successfully built entire product lines out of India, end-to-end.

The company’s approach to work also reflects its trust in the maturity of Indian talent. Its ‘Team Anywhere’ model allows employees to work from 28 states across India, with the flexibility to decide when to come into the office. Rather than enforcing rigid return-to-office mandates, Atlassian emphasises ‘Intentional Togetherness’, periodic in-person gatherings for collaboration without compromising flexibility.

Atlassian’s R&D focus in India is already powering the next wave of innovation. Its teams are building AI-driven service agents, incident management tools and consumption-based billing platforms, redefining how enterprise SaaS operates in an AI-first world. The company is also piloting Atlassian Studio, a low-code/no-code agent development platform designed to empower even non-engineers to build AI agents.

“We are building a 100-year company, not just optimising for this quarter,” Rajan said. That long-term vision explains why Atlassian continues to double down on India, making it the fastest-growing R&D centre worldwide.

The India team has “significant autonomy in setting product vision, defining roadmaps and executing on delivery”, Rajan noted, directly influencing the success of Atlassian’s offerings. Teams in India own major products such as IT service management, marketplace, commerce and cloud transitions, with engineering, product management and design leadership based locally.

Talent Scope

Atlassian’s hiring approach focuses on building senior leadership in India across engineering, product and design. The culture of empowerment is reinforced through initiatives like ShipIt, Atlassian’s biannual hackathon, which encourages experimentation and innovation. 

Meanwhile, in the second quarter alone, at least 16 new GCCs were set up in India by firms including GlobalFoundries, Heineken, First Citizens Bank, Sonatype, Reltio, Dai-ichi Life Holdings and Toyo Engineering. This builds on a strong Q1, which saw companies like Citizens Financial Group, AT&S, NAVEX and Rapid7 expand their presence. Together, these moves highlight the democratisation of the GCC model.

Most GCCs in India are driving their AI innovation from India.

For instance, Lowe’s team in Bengaluru has been a critical driver of its AI journey, playing a crucial role in developing and deploying cutting-edge solutions. 

“Many of our core systems, including the omnichannel order management and self-checkout terminals, were built from the ground up by our engineers in Bengaluru. These solutions have provided us with unmatched scalability and flexibility,” Amit Kapur, VP of AI and data analytics at Lowe’s India, told AIM.

In the healthcare sector, Siemens Healthineers plays a vital part within its parent company, making significant contributions to innovation. At present, approximately 54% of the global software workforce is based in Bengaluru, comprising a team of 3,500.

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