I interviewed for a software engineering internship for the Fall of 2018.

Rounds:

• Recruiter phone chat: Make sure you can answer why you want to work at Palantir in depth. Some people can get rejected at this round.

• Coding challenge: Detecting Contractor Fraud. You do not need to pass all test cases to advance; I passed 17/22. It was a long question but not difficult in terms of algorithms. It involved string parsing.

• Technical phone screen: Included behavioral and technical questions related to implementing a custom comparator. There was a lot of discussion about trade-offs of the code. You did not need to run code.

• Onsite: Consisted of three interviews: Systems design, bug bash, and a technical algorithmic question. All questions were open-ended, and I enjoyed the interviews. My interviews were followed by a product demo, then a meeting with the hiring manager.

I ended up not getting the offer, and I suspect it’s because I wasn’t enthusiastic enough about the Palantir mission during my hiring manager interview.

Overall, it was a positive experience. I got a good impression of Palantir and will reinterview next year.

One thing I want to note about Palantir is that they are very flexible with you choosing the location, e.g., NYC, Palo Alto, London, which is great.

Why Palantir?

Design an in-app customer support system for Palantir clients. Discussed in depth the requirements and user interface.