Interview Process:

• OA (Online Assessment)
• Karat Interview
• Behavioural Interview
• Onsite (Learning + Decomposition)
• Hiring Manager (45 min Behavioural + 15 min Decomposition)
• Offer

Each step of the interview process, the recruiter is there to help you. They arrange a quick chat to give you feedback after each stage and provide advice to prepare for the next. The feedback they conveyed, both from their perspective and the rest of the interviewers', was the most insightful feedback I received in any interview process I went through.

Every company claims they want to understand how you think and don't care about you getting the problem 100% right the first try. Palantir is one of the few companies where I believe that is genuinely the case.

The OA and Karat interviews focus on fundamentals, which is closer to LeetCode. However, after that, the interview process is unique to Palantir.

The behavioural interviews are quite difficult, as the company has a strong idea of who they consider a fit. I've heard many people fail at this stage. My advice would be to be blunt and honest with yourself, as they can see right through your BS. I learned that the hard way the first time I applied.

After that comes the Onsite. Both decomposition and learning interviews last 45 minutes and start with a 15-minute behavioural portion.

Decomposition is similar to a System Design interview; however, it places much higher focus on decomposition itself, rather than nailing implementation details.

The learning interview is something you cannot prepare for, as you are given a new concept they believe you haven't encountered before. You are then given problems where you are supposed to demonstrate how you learned from the documentation or examples provided.

The hiring manager interview is last. Here, you repeat the type of interview you performed worse on during the onsite (for me, that was decomposition), where they try to ensure you won't repeat the same mistakes.

The Hiring Manager makes a significant effort to truly understand what interests and drives you.

I cannot stress enough how important it was to communicate with your interviewer. Especially with these types of interviews, it was critical to ask the right questions and explain the reasoning behind your decisions, rather than just spitting out the right algorithm.

I can honestly say I very much enjoyed speaking with each person during the interview process. I truly felt they were genuinely interested in what I had to say and who I was.

After each interview, I received feedback almost instantly. After the onsite, it was within 3 hours. After the Hiring Manager interview, I got the offer the next day.

Explained above. I can't go into specifics because of the NDA.