Pros: The primary reason I joined Palantir, and continue to work at Palantir, is the opportunity I have to learn and grow. Palantir highly encourages technical growth, and I have often been paired with another developer on projects in order to further my skills. This sort of learning also happens through self-organized, informal efforts, such as: * Reading groups * Hobbit Academy (internal classes and mini-workshops) * Pizza and Papers (order a bunch of pizza and discuss an academic paper) * Others One of the primary criteria for choosing where to work was how much I would continue developing as an engineer. At Palantir, I have not only improved significantly, but also continued learning about interesting new developments and technologies. In addition to this, I’ve found that Palantirians tend to be well-aligned in our goals and objectives, which makes it all the more gratifying to work as part of a team. Everyone at Palantir is focused on the same outcomes — delivering the most value to our customers in the most effective way. Palantir seeks to give as much context as possible to everyone at the company and strives to make sure everyone understands the decisions that affect them. This way, with everyone on the same page, it truly feels like working towards a shared vision.

Cons: As a rapidly growing company, we often find processes that once worked in the past no longer do so. Process changes can be painful, and it often takes some experimentation and iteration to determine what the new best process will be. This is somewhat mitigated by the leadership's transparency around new initiatives and a willingness to admit failure when things don't work.

Pros: I joined Palantir from industry. I previously worked as a software engineer at a popular, large Silicon Valley tech company. I've learned more here at Palantir in a few months than I had in over a year at my previous job, and this is even after years of software engineering experience. I attribute this to the high caliber of people that I work with at Palantir, and the tremendous challenges we have to tackle. The level of impact I can have on the projects is extremely high. Not only are my contributions meaningful and make a significant difference on whether our product ships successfully or not, but also I have a pretty big level of exposure to how we deploy and sell our product out in the world. Combine that with the fact that our products have a tremendous impact on the real world in a very real manner, and you get an awesome environment that I think is very difficult to find anywhere else.

Cons: The high hiring bar means we have a hard time hiring folks, which means our teams can be strapped for people. You may wear multiple technical hats as a software engineer and be challenged in ways that will make you grow. This may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Pros: really smart people around, a great culture (cult) and sense of mission.

Cons: Long work hours (top-down pressure).