Palantir

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Washington, District of Columbia

January 1, 2019

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

The interview process started with a HackerRank challenge, followed by a non-technical phone interview, a technical phone interview, and culminated in a set of on-site interviews. The on-site consisted of three 1-on-1 technical interviews, after which I was invited for an interview with a hiring manager.

Questions

Given a codebase in Java, find and fix two specific bugs.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 11 interview experiences for the Palantir Software Engineer role in Washington, District of Columbia.

Success Rate

9%

Pass Rate

Palantir's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Washington, District of Columbia is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive55%

Neutral27%

Negative18%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Palantir's Software Engineer interview process in Washington, District of Columbia.

Palantir Work Experiences

Issues Beneath the Shiny Veneer

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

September 15, 2022

Pros: It has good leadership at the top under Dr. Karp. A lot of their work will provide a sense of purpose and genuinely has a positive impact on the world. The office perks are also excellent, especially the food.

Cons: Palantir is arrogant and even borderline cultish. Below Dr. Karp, it suffers from immature leaders and managers. Being a people lead only implies that you have power over people, not that you have people skills. Few checks exist on a manager's power to ruin your career, especially if they subjectively determine that you are not a good "culture fit." A lack of "culture fit" means that it's OK to mistreat you because you're different, not that you don't fit into Palantir's culture.

Issues Beneath the Shiny Veneer

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

September 15, 2022

Pros: It has good leadership at the top under Dr. Karp. A lot of their work will provide a sense of purpose and genuinely has a positive impact on the world. The office perks are also excellent, especially the food.

Cons: Palantir is arrogant and even borderline cultish. Below Dr. Karp, it suffers from immature leaders and managers. Being a people lead only implies that you have power over people, not that you have people skills. Few checks exist on a manager's power to ruin your career, especially if they subjectively determine that you are not a good "culture fit." A lack of "culture fit" means that it's OK to mistreat you because you're different, not that you don't fit into Palantir's culture.

Pros and cons

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Pros: smart people, rewarding, stable, good benefits, and office spaces.

Cons: High pressure, sometimes building demoware.

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Pros: smart people, rewarding, stable, good benefits, and office spaces.

Cons: High pressure, sometimes building demoware.

Smart folks, fast-paced, and self-driven

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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.

Smart folks, fast-paced, and self-driven

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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.

Issues Beneath the Shiny Veneer

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

September 15, 2022

Pros: It has good leadership at the top under Dr. Karp. A lot of their work will provide a sense of purpose and genuinely has a positive impact on the world. The office perks are also excellent, especially the food.

Cons: Palantir is arrogant and even borderline cultish. Below Dr. Karp, it suffers from immature leaders and managers. Being a people lead only implies that you have power over people, not that you have people skills. Few checks exist on a manager's power to ruin your career, especially if they subjectively determine that you are not a good "culture fit." A lack of "culture fit" means that it's OK to mistreat you because you're different, not that you don't fit into Palantir's culture.

2.0
Issues Beneath the Shiny Veneer
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
September 15, 2022
Pros: It has good leadership at the top under Dr. Karp. A lot of their work will provide a sense of purpose and genuinely has a positive impact on the world. The office perks are also excellent, especially the food.
Cons: Palantir is arrogant and even borderline cultish. Below Dr. Karp, it suffers from immature leaders and managers. Being a people lead only implies that you have power over people, not that you have people skills. Few checks exist on a manager's power to ruin your career, especially if they subjectively determine that you are not a good "culture fit." A lack of "culture fit" means that it's OK to mistreat you because you're different, not that you don't fit into Palantir's culture.

Pros and cons

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Pros: smart people, rewarding, stable, good benefits, and office spaces.

Cons: High pressure, sometimes building demoware.

4.0
Pros and cons
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
June 5, 2025
Pros: smart people, rewarding, stable, good benefits, and office spaces.
Cons: High pressure, sometimes building demoware.

Smart folks, fast-paced, and self-driven

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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.

5.0
Smart folks, fast-paced, and self-driven
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
July 9, 2020
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.

Palantir Interview Questions

Find Beautiful Indices in the Given Array I

Given a string and two substrings, find the indices where the first substring occurs. Then, find the indices where the second substring occurs. Return the indices of the first substring that are close to any index of the second substring, within a specified range.

ArraysStringsTwo Pointers

Smallest String With Swaps

You're given a string and a list of index pairs. You can swap characters at these indices any number of times. Find the lexicographically smallest string you can obtain after performing these swaps.

ArraysStringsGraphsGreedy Algorithms

Find Beautiful Indices in the Given Array II

You're given a string and two patterns. Find all 'beautiful' indices where an occurrence of the first pattern is within 'k' distance of an occurrence of the second pattern.

ArraysStringsTwo Pointers

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