I was contacted by a recruiter named Stephanie, who sent me a coding challenge. When I initially didn't have time to complete it, the recruiter sent a kind reminder. I eventually dedicated two hours to the coding challenge and responded to her email. Without any greeting or feedback on my submission, she simply stated, "Let's chat."

We scheduled a brief phone interview with HR. I assumed this would be an informal conversation and agreed. Coincidentally, at that time, I had to drive to work. I was in the car when she called, and I answered. I spoke with her on speakerphone, which made the conversation quite difficult. She then asked me for the number of bits in 1000 and the number of times one would need to perform a binary search to find an element within the range of 0 to 1000.

I explained that I was not by a computer and didn't have paper to work through the problem. However, I detailed the step-by-step process for computing the answer, discussed the appropriate runtime, and explained the concepts behind binary search. Despite this, she insisted on the exact numerical answer. I performed some mental calculations and responded with approximately 9-10 searches in the worst case to find an element between 0 and 1000. She then proceeded to ask for the binary representation of 1000, which is quite difficult to calculate mentally. I told her it would approximately be a series of ones from left to right, ending in a couple of zeros. That was the best I could do with mental math. I asked if we could reschedule for another time, but at that point, the interview was already over.

A couple of hours later, I emailed her with the answers to her questions and an explanation of my situation. It seemed she was indifferent to my candidacy and my thought process.

Her sole focus was on obtaining the correct answers. It was a poor experience and a poorly conceived interview question from the recruiter.

This experience reflected negatively on me (though I acknowledge I should have scheduled for a time when I was by a computer, even with the emergency). It also reflected badly on Palantir and on my recruiter, who asked questions without fully understanding the concepts herself and expected candidates to instantly recall information typically found through searching or memorization.

This is not how engineering should be conducted, nor how recruiting should be managed. It was a terrible experience, and as a top-tier company, I hope Palantir will educate its recruiters and improve its interview methodologies.

Find the binary format of 1000.

How many searches do you need to find an element between 0 and 1000?