Pros: Important work that creates new technology and solves important problems – work with real meaning. Talented coworkers always have something to teach and to learn – collaboration is amazing. Equity packages with little risk and still lots of upside (even for new employees). Upper management is filled with super sharp and hard-working people who care deeply about the success of the organization and its people. They're not perfect, but they are the best I've ever seen. A great culture where people who want to take initiative are rewarded and lauded. The culture is protected and cared for to make sure this place doesn't lose its magic. A management team that's very introspective and transparent, always trying to learn and do better. A true meritocracy, where the best idea wins and seniority and titles are not important, just good work.

Cons: Some managers are sharp individuals but poor managers. Despite best efforts to train them, some folks suffer due to this. Company is growing fast, and growing pains abound. The company is working hard to offset these issues, but new ways of doing things need to be implemented. Another growth issue: upper management is overworked more than anyone, leading to some pressing issues slipping through the cracks. They get fixed eventually, but there's pain in the meantime. People work hard, and some groups try to maintain an unsustainable pace that leads to burnout and jealousy of people perceived to have "cushier" jobs. Overall compensation is high (due to stock options that are/will be worth real money), but cash compensation is lower than industry (not ridiculously so, but low, yeah).

Pros: Great mission. Great speed of execution.

Cons: Tight timelines and long hours

Pros: - Still some smart people left. - Decent comp (if you joined pre-IPO). - Used to have good perks, but most of them got cut during the pandemic and with constant cost-cutting that started in advance of the IPO.

Cons: Poor work-life balance. If you don't mind 24/7 on-calls and frequent "surges," this is your home. Professional growth perspectives are virtually non-existent. It's all very random and mostly luck/politics dependent. If you are "unlucky" and got assigned a crappy team/project early on, you will struggle to ever get considered for anything better. You will not learn much and just get stuck. There are few good teams, but since most others are so mediocre, you are unlikely to get into a good one, and moving "upwards" internally is very hard. It's worse if you also get a lead (Palantir term for "manager") who lacks motivation, time, or power to support you. As burnout gets more widespread, more long-timers either quit or become jaded and stop caring; the chance of getting such a manager is higher. In terms of coding, you will mostly fiddle with internal frameworks. If you are "lucky," you might get to work on something new; otherwise, expect vast legacy codebases with plenty of tech debt and support issues. Or they could put you as a "dev" on infra. Leadership is still rather inexperienced and often not sure what they are doing. They try to call it "flat structure"; in practice, there are few unofficial "power clusters," centered around people who are actually important, and their decisions are enforced. Some got this authority by merit, others just by being close to founders/directors, "tenure," or being good at office politics. The result is low transparency on decisions affecting you, wasted effort, and frequent reinventing the wheel. If you are extremely unlucky, they might put you on BD (business development). The main purpose of engineers there is to help customers use Palantir products, especially when they break (and boy, do they break often). Once you are in BD, Palantir will not let you "escape BD" until you quit.