Yet, while their company is the nation's greatest tech success story to date, few outside of the software development community understand what it is, or what it does. Loading That certainly wasn't the case with their predecessors in media, finance and mining. So what is all the fuss about? Atlassian can be thought of as the technology company for technologists. It makes software that is used primarily by software developers and IT departments. It sounds dry - it is certainly not the most glamorous corner of the tech industry. But as software infiltrates every industry, and as tech culture increasingly infiltrates business culture, it is not a bad place to be.

Last week its share price closed at fresh highs in the US, pushing its market value up to $US22.7 billion ($31.4 billion). It means that if Atlassian was listed on the ASX, rather than the Nasdaq, it would be comfortably among the top 20 most valuable companies on the local exchange. The company's flagship product is JIRA - a project management and bug tracking tool used by thousands of companies and organisations including NASA and Tesla. Developers legitimately rave about it.

"I will go on the record, wholeheartedly, saying JIRA is a fantastic piece of software that helps companies organise and manage their work," Dan Nolan, co-founder of Proxima, a Sydney software start-up, says. "And without it my company would barely be able to function". Another software engineer I spoke to said JIRA is the best tool for working in 'Agile', a framework for building software than has become a management buzzword adopted by some major companies. Atlassian is also known in business circles for pioneering the "no salesforce" software model. Based on the other side of the world to its customers, it decided to invest in research and development and content marketing, rather than employing costly executives with expense accounts to wine and dine chief technology officers. The aim was to create relatively inexpensive software products that would take hold in small teams, and spread virally within organisations and beyond.

The model has been copied by others, most notably office chat provider Slack (Atlassian recently sold its own chat platform to Slack, and took a small investment in the company. Buoyed by the rise in Altassian's share price, Slack is now reportedly preparing for an IPO of its own.) Loading Developers and IT help desks aren't the only people who gush about Atlassian. Its shareholders do as well, understandably given the stock has more than quadrupled since listing. Remarkably, despite growing interest in tech stocks and global equities, the company still has no Australian institutional shareholders of any size or significance. Tim Garratt, a partner at Bailie Gifford, the Scottish fund manager which owns $US779 million worth of Atlassian shares (according to S&P Global Market Intelligence) praises the company's "founder led culture," and long term vision.

"Mike Cannon-Brookes has a focus on the next coming decades rather than the next quarter or two. He’s prepared to invest for the long term and we are strongly supportive of that approach," he says. Not everyone is enamoured with Atlassian, though. Over the years, the company has been criticised for diversity issues, and for paying little tax in Australia. And, like many tech companies whose shares look expensive on traditional measures, it has also been targeted by short sellers. About 7 per cent of Atlassian's free float has been sold short, according to Bloomberg. For its part, Bailie Gifford thinks the Atlassian story is only just beginning. "We see the long term potential for Atlassian to service a hundred million users across the world," says Garratt. "So it is still early days for this exciting business and we’re looking forward to seeing how it develops over the next decade and beyond." In a recent interview with Fairfax's Good Weekend, Cannon-Brookes spoke about the infiltration of tech companies into the rest of the economy, and whether legacy companies can resist them. It's a dynamic Atlassian will benefit from.

"Does Netflix become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix? That tech versus old industry battle is going to be fascinating," he said. As tech becomes more and more important to every company, it will be equally fascinating to see how high up the list of Australia's most valuable companies Atlassian can climb. UNSW graduates and Atlassian co founders Mike Cannon-Brookes (left, with scarf) and Scott Farquhar watch as shares open on the Nasdaq. Credit:Trevor Collens