Palantir

Forward Deployed Software Engineer Interview Experience

October 28, 2025

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Did learning and decomp interviews go? Learning was really doable and I got it all right. Decomp is very abstract and you aren't given any direction. They're a really weird company (culture); I would stay away.

Questions

Why are you interested in this role?

Was this helpful?

Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 139 interview experiences for the Palantir Forward Deployed Software Engineer role in United States.

Success Rate

11%

Pass Rate

Palantir's interview process for their Forward Deployed Software Engineer roles in the United States is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive48%

Neutral30%

Negative22%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Palantir's Forward Deployed Software Engineer interview process in United States.

Palantir Work Experiences

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.

Purpose, autonomy & mastery

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

August 25, 2015

Pros: Transformative projects with customers who matter. A-grade employees, driven towards material impact. A very high degree of autonomy awarded to staff.

Cons: Resourcing - there are more opportunities than staff. Sometimes this means staff get stuck with one customer; sometimes it means that ownership can be lacking as staff move through a customer to fight a fire rather than truly fix an issue in a sustainable way. Workforce is not especially diverse, despite everyone's efforts to address this. Being in a branch office, it is sometimes hard to divine strategic and tactical vision. Conversely, we are given wide latitude to chart our own destiny.

Purpose, autonomy & mastery

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

August 25, 2015

Pros: Transformative projects with customers who matter. A-grade employees, driven towards material impact. A very high degree of autonomy awarded to staff.

Cons: Resourcing - there are more opportunities than staff. Sometimes this means staff get stuck with one customer; sometimes it means that ownership can be lacking as staff move through a customer to fight a fire rather than truly fix an issue in a sustainable way. Workforce is not especially diverse, despite everyone's efforts to address this. Being in a branch office, it is sometimes hard to divine strategic and tactical vision. Conversely, we are given wide latitude to chart our own destiny.

Great place to intern

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

October 2, 2015

Pros: Learned a lot, had a more meaningful project than most interns at other companies that I know. Met a lot of really smart people who I will be sure to keep in touch with. Integrated quickly into my team. Learned about new verticals. Lots of cool benefits and events.

Cons: Worked hard and was exhausted at times. This wasn't a summer vacation. Some internal documentation could have been better, making it easier to get up to speed on projects.

Great place to intern

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

October 2, 2015

Pros: Learned a lot, had a more meaningful project than most interns at other companies that I know. Met a lot of really smart people who I will be sure to keep in touch with. Integrated quickly into my team. Learned about new verticals. Lots of cool benefits and events.

Cons: Worked hard and was exhausted at times. This wasn't a summer vacation. Some internal documentation could have been better, making it easier to get up to speed on projects.

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.

Purpose, autonomy & mastery

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

August 25, 2015

Pros: Transformative projects with customers who matter. A-grade employees, driven towards material impact. A very high degree of autonomy awarded to staff.

Cons: Resourcing - there are more opportunities than staff. Sometimes this means staff get stuck with one customer; sometimes it means that ownership can be lacking as staff move through a customer to fight a fire rather than truly fix an issue in a sustainable way. Workforce is not especially diverse, despite everyone's efforts to address this. Being in a branch office, it is sometimes hard to divine strategic and tactical vision. Conversely, we are given wide latitude to chart our own destiny.

4.0
Purpose, autonomy & mastery
Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Current Employee
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
August 25, 2015
Pros: Transformative projects with customers who matter. A-grade employees, driven towards material impact. A very high degree of autonomy awarded to staff.
Cons: Resourcing - there are more opportunities than staff. Sometimes this means staff get stuck with one customer; sometimes it means that ownership can be lacking as staff move through a customer to fight a fire rather than truly fix an issue in a sustainable way. Workforce is not especially diverse, despite everyone's efforts to address this. Being in a branch office, it is sometimes hard to divine strategic and tactical vision. Conversely, we are given wide latitude to chart our own destiny.

Great place to intern

Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

October 2, 2015

Pros: Learned a lot, had a more meaningful project than most interns at other companies that I know. Met a lot of really smart people who I will be sure to keep in touch with. Integrated quickly into my team. Learned about new verticals. Lots of cool benefits and events.

Cons: Worked hard and was exhausted at times. This wasn't a summer vacation. Some internal documentation could have been better, making it easier to get up to speed on projects.

5.0
Great place to intern
Forward Deployed Software Engineer • Former Employee
New York, New York, United States
October 2, 2015
Pros: Learned a lot, had a more meaningful project than most interns at other companies that I know. Met a lot of really smart people who I will be sure to keep in touch with. Integrated quickly into my team. Learned about new verticals. Lots of cool benefits and events.
Cons: Worked hard and was exhausted at times. This wasn't a summer vacation. Some internal documentation could have been better, making it easier to get up to speed on projects.

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

Copyright © Taro