Pros: You will face challenges that will make you learn a lot.

Cons: Work-life balance not very good.

Pros: Mission, the impact this company has and the impact you can create as an intern is amazing. You immediately work on hard and important problems, with no side projects to keep interns busy. You're treated as a full-time employee for the most part. Culture, the people are among the friendliest and smartest out there. You can ask anyone for help. Further, from the constant internal dialogues, you can tell the company is ethically-minded and pursues success with integrity. Support system, mentor/lead/team/recruiter are all actively helping you make the internship a great experience. If there's a problem, you can raise it and it will be addressed. Personal growth, you're given a voice in what you want to do and what skills you want to improve. Travel, we had the opportunity to travel across and out of the country as interns. Perks, the free housing, 3 meals a day, the haircuts, the massages, etc., make life quite comfortable. Intern cohorting, interns in an office got to know each other pretty well and we've become friends throughout the internship. This is just my experience, but my experience isn't uncommon from what I can tell. Compensation, one of the highest out there.

Cons: Finding your own work-life balance. Because of the flexible hours, it can be difficult to find a balance that works for you when you see coworkers arriving or leaving at vastly different hours. That said, I didn't feel any pressure to work late or get in early. It's just a matter of doing what's best for you and communicating that.

Pros: Your coworkers are going to be incredibly competent. I've been here for a year and a half and I haven't yet encountered a coworker who wasn't good at their job. The culture is very fast-paced; it sort of feels like early Facebook's "move fast and break things." If you're self-motivated and enjoy ambiguous, high-impact problems, Palantir is for you. In all things, Palantir minimizes process. You get to define how things get done, and it's up to you to make it happen. If you enjoy a lot of structure and process, Palantir will probably be really painful.

Cons: The culture is really fast-paced and intense. If you're bad at taking time off and unplugging from work (and most Palantirians are), Palantir won't stop you from overworking. For this reason, there's a good amount of burnout. The culture also is built around being a self-starter. It's not okay to be blocked by other people, and you'll be expected to think outside of the box to solve problems and get yourself unblocked. If you don't like ambiguous or difficult problems, you're going to have a bad time. If you're bad at unplugging from work, you're going to have a bad time.