Palantir

Forward Deployed Software Engineer Interview Experience - Palo Alto, California

March 1, 2015

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Interview Process:

Coding Challenge
Phone screening with HR rep
Phone interview with coding
Onsite interview (4 technical interviews)

I went to the Palo Alto HQ and had three interviews in the morning, followed by a company lunch with an engineer chaperone. I missed the product demo.

The strangest part was sitting in a room with other candidates as people were called out one by one for a follow-up afternoon interview.

Questions

Determine whether a crossword (a grid of 0s and 1s) is valid.

This means all 1s must be reachable from other 1s.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 6 interview experiences for the Palantir Forward Deployed Software Engineer role in Palo Alto, California.

Success Rate

33%

Pass Rate

Palantir's interview process for their Forward Deployed Software Engineer roles in Palo Alto, California is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive83%

Neutral0%

Negative17%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Palantir's Forward Deployed Software Engineer interview process in Palo Alto, California.

Palantir Work Experiences

Interesting Work, Growing Pains

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: They deal with some very interesting problems.

Cons: Management is going through growing pains and doesn't know how to allocate work properly. Sometimes it seemed fairly haphazard in organizing. Pressure to work a ton.

Interesting Work, Growing Pains

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: They deal with some very interesting problems.

Cons: Management is going through growing pains and doesn't know how to allocate work properly. Sometimes it seemed fairly haphazard in organizing. Pressure to work a ton.

Smart Team, Boring Database Work

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: - Smart and diligent coworkers - Nerd culture meets business sense

Cons: The work itself becomes boring soon. It's essentially the databases 101 challenge SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE, over and over again. The promises of the contract offer were not honored in full: The starting date was pushed back several months on short notice (2 weeks). Stock was not granted in full. Many perks have been slashed after the IPO. The starting salary is high for recent graduates but then stalls. Progression cannot keep up with other tech companies.

Smart Team, Boring Database Work

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: - Smart and diligent coworkers - Nerd culture meets business sense

Cons: The work itself becomes boring soon. It's essentially the databases 101 challenge SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE, over and over again. The promises of the contract offer were not honored in full: The starting date was pushed back several months on short notice (2 weeks). Stock was not granted in full. Many perks have been slashed after the IPO. The starting salary is high for recent graduates but then stalls. Progression cannot keep up with other tech companies.

Be ready to be on your own

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: Salary is great, benefits are amazing, and they pretty much pay for everything.

Cons: The counterpart to having everything paid for you is that Palantir acts as if they own you and expect you to be working 24/7. Also, very little direction is given, and you're expected to figure things out by yourself from the get-go. And god forbid you ask for help, as you will be seen as weak and inefficient. It's a soul-crushing place that does not see workers as humans but merely as code monkeys.

Be ready to be on your own

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: Salary is great, benefits are amazing, and they pretty much pay for everything.

Cons: The counterpart to having everything paid for you is that Palantir acts as if they own you and expect you to be working 24/7. Also, very little direction is given, and you're expected to figure things out by yourself from the get-go. And god forbid you ask for help, as you will be seen as weak and inefficient. It's a soul-crushing place that does not see workers as humans but merely as code monkeys.

Interesting Work, Growing Pains

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: They deal with some very interesting problems.

Cons: Management is going through growing pains and doesn't know how to allocate work properly. Sometimes it seemed fairly haphazard in organizing. Pressure to work a ton.

4.0
Interesting Work, Growing Pains
Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
March 15, 2014
Pros: They deal with some very interesting problems.
Cons: Management is going through growing pains and doesn't know how to allocate work properly. Sometimes it seemed fairly haphazard in organizing. Pressure to work a ton.

Smart Team, Boring Database Work

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: - Smart and diligent coworkers - Nerd culture meets business sense

Cons: The work itself becomes boring soon. It's essentially the databases 101 challenge SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE, over and over again. The promises of the contract offer were not honored in full: The starting date was pushed back several months on short notice (2 weeks). Stock was not granted in full. Many perks have been slashed after the IPO. The starting salary is high for recent graduates but then stalls. Progression cannot keep up with other tech companies.

3.0
Smart Team, Boring Database Work
Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee
March 8, 2021
Pros: - Smart and diligent coworkers - Nerd culture meets business sense
Cons: The work itself becomes boring soon. It's essentially the databases 101 challenge SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE, over and over again. The promises of the contract offer were not honored in full: The starting date was pushed back several months on short notice (2 weeks). Stock was not granted in full. Many perks have been slashed after the IPO. The starting salary is high for recent graduates but then stalls. Progression cannot keep up with other tech companies.

Be ready to be on your own

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: Salary is great, benefits are amazing, and they pretty much pay for everything.

Cons: The counterpart to having everything paid for you is that Palantir acts as if they own you and expect you to be working 24/7. Also, very little direction is given, and you're expected to figure things out by yourself from the get-go. And god forbid you ask for help, as you will be seen as weak and inefficient. It's a soul-crushing place that does not see workers as humans but merely as code monkeys.

1.0
Be ready to be on your own
Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee
New York, New York, United States
April 6, 2018
Pros: Salary is great, benefits are amazing, and they pretty much pay for everything.
Cons: The counterpart to having everything paid for you is that Palantir acts as if they own you and expect you to be working 24/7. Also, very little direction is given, and you're expected to figure things out by yourself from the get-go. And god forbid you ask for help, as you will be seen as weak and inefficient. It's a soul-crushing place that does not see workers as humans but merely as code monkeys.

Palantir Interview Questions

Find Beautiful Indices in the Given Array I

Given a string and two substrings, find the indices where the first substring occurs. Then, find the indices where the second substring occurs. Return the indices of the first substring that are close to any index of the second substring, within a specified range.

ArraysStringsTwo Pointers

Smallest String With Swaps

You're given a string and a list of index pairs. You can swap characters at these indices any number of times. Find the lexicographically smallest string you can obtain after performing these swaps.

ArraysStringsGraphsGreedy Algorithms

Find Beautiful Indices in the Given Array II

You're given a string and two patterns. Find all 'beautiful' indices where an occurrence of the first pattern is within 'k' distance of an occurrence of the second pattern.

ArraysStringsTwo Pointers

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