I applied for the FDSE, and the process took just under 3 months.

Process

1. 1st round: HR screening: Trying to understand your interest in the role and company.
2. 2nd round: Online VC with another engineer: Solving a problem using HackerRank.
3. 3rd round: Three face-to-face interviews in New York:
   • Technical coding test
   • Decomposition problem
   • Algorithmic challenge
   • Lunch with another engineer (to assess social compatibility), followed by a product presentation.
4. 4th round: On-site interviews:
   • Decomposition/System design
   • Behavioral questions
   • Interview with the hiring manager.
5. 5th round: Phone interview with one of the founders.

Observations

• The people are really friendly, and everyone I met was very good to deal with.
• These people are very smart.
• The company looks after its staff with many office perks, as indicated in other posts.
• It's true, the offices are set out so you don't need to go home. RBTL.
• Everyone I met is under 30, with the majority around 27.

Experience

After the 4b interview, I was due to have lunch with the team and then proceed to meet the hiring manager. I was then shown around the office briefly, where the hiring manager saw me for the first time. He said "hello" and turned around to continue filling his lunch plate. He didn't even bother to say anything further or even smile; a parallel situation would be like seeing an ex-partner in a lift – it was really odd.

I was told to come back later that afternoon to meet the hiring manager for the next interview. I went out to get my own lunch and returned at the specified time. This is where things went wrong, in my opinion.

When I came back, the hiring manager had apparently gone home sick, so I was interviewed by another person and given a coding test (which I solved). I found that really odd, given that the whole point of these interviews was for cultural and team fit.

After a week, I received feedback that they didn't see me as a suitable FDSE but instead as a Deployment Strategist. I was then told that I'd have to go through the ENTIRE process again. I declined.

Post-interview Observations

• I reckon the hiring manager (who was about 28) declined to interview me because of my age. The reason I'm guessing would be that at my life stage, I'd be expected to have children and couldn't commit more than 12 hours per day. I do have children and wouldn't do 12+ hours per day for extended periods anyway.
• Although all the people I met were friendly, none appeared to be the type to have children or commitments outside work.
• Everyone I asked indicated that they work very, very hard (read: long hours). One even stated that he doesn't really sleep that much anyway.
• Once things start to deviate from what HR tells you to expect, you can take that as a rejection.

Recommendations

• Don't bother applying if you are over 30, have children, have a partner who does not work there, or have activities outside of work.
• They stock the office so you don't need to leave. Everything from shaving cream to all your food needs and shoe polish is there.
• This place would be good for someone with no more than 5 years of experience.
• There are better companies out there that pay better (if not more) and would not be too intrusive on your life.
• They have some good software, but there is not much you can gain as an FDSE that would be transferable to another company. Hence my recommendation that it's only suitable for recent graduates. For seasoned professionals, this would drain your technical skills pretty quickly. That was implied by one of the engineers who said that he'd spent months writing Perl scripts to parse incomplete XML files.

1. Why Palantir? What would make you suitable for the role?

2. Take a look at HackerRank. A lot of medium-category questions were asked.