Workplace collaboration software company Atlassian (TEAM), which went public last month in a well-received U.S. initial public offering, has named a high-level Groupon (GRPN) executive as its first chief technology officer.
Sridatta Viswanath was Groupon’s CTO and senior vice president of engineering and operations for the past three years. He previously held engineering roles at virtualization software company VMware (VMW), digital media company Mode Media, and data center pioneer Sun Microsystems.
The appointment marks a shift in Atlassian’s technology management strategy, which has mainly emphasized innovation within the company’s various business units, said Atlassian President Jay Simons.
The company’s flagship applications include the JIRA tool for helping programmers keep tabs on project bugs; the HipChat corporate messaging service, which competes with the eponymous offering from Slack; and the Confluence project and content management system. Viswanath’s mandate is to focus on technologies that cut across all these platforms such as security and identity management, scalability, mobile access features, and interface design.
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“With the consumerization of the enterprise, Sri’s deep understanding of the customer experience that is necessary for high-scale consumer products will be important as we continue to expand beyond software teams to all business teams,” Atlassian’s co-founder and co-CEO, Mike Cannon Brookes, said in a statement.
To see why Atlassian’s IPO attracted so much attention, watch:
Research and development represents Atlassian’s largest operational expense—more than one-third of its revenue over the past three fiscal years, or about $250 million, according to the company’s IPO documents. (The company’s first earnings report as a public company is scheduled for after the market close on Feb. 4.)
Atlassian’s stock price has fared relatively well during the recent tech selloff. Its shares closed at $23.67 on Monday, compared with its IPO debut price of $27.48.
This morning, Atlassian was also named by Fortune as one of the 30 Best Workplaces in Tech, at No. 6 on the list of best medium-sized companies. For the full list, go to fortune.com/best-workplaces-tech.
