I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Palantir Technologies (Palo Alto, CA)
Interview
One phone interview, followed by an onsite interview
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One of the algorithm questions I received was genuinely difficult (probably the hardest question I've been asked in any software engineering interview, in fact), but I don't remember the details quite well enough to replicate it here. Aside from that, the questions I was asked were all reasonable; however, I was a bit surprised when one of the interviewers spent several minutes speaking generally about my personal tastes/opinions regarding object oriented design, asking questions like, "what is your favorite design pattern?" Frankly, I really don't have a "favorite design pattern", and I felt a bit awkward answering these questions (which were posed with much enthusiasm).
I interviewed at Palantir Technologies (Miami, FL) in Jun 2026
Interview
Started with a recruiter screen where the whole point is just checking if you actually care about their mission and the real-world impact of their software, rather than just wanting a cool tech job. After that was a 90 minute hackerrank OA that felt more like an implementation mini-project with SQL and Python instead of abstract algorithms.
The onsite was a 4-round loop chosen from decomp, re-engineering, learning, coding, and sys design. Decomp is the most important one - they give you a super vague prompt like designing a chess game or tracking a disease from scratch, and you have to map out the inputs and logic out loud. Re-engineering gives you around 1000 lines of code with a very subtle logical bug to fix, and the learning round drops you into a random API with barely any documentation to see how fast you pick it up lol. Coding was standard LC mediums but they squeeze a 20-minute behavioral chat right into the middle of it, and sys design was heavy on data governance and fault tolerance. The final chat with the hiring manager is pretty intense too ngl. They will actually make you redo parts of the onsite you struggled with. For prep, don't just mindlessly grind LeetCode. Practice reading other people's code fast and structuring ambiguous problems. I got a really good Palantir coach on Prepfully who helped a lot to catch my blind spots and get a reality check before the actual loop. Overall, not very easy though
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A payment processing module has a race condition that produces incorrect totals under concurrent writes. Walk through how you would identify the root cause and propose a fix.
I interviewed at Palantir Technologies (New York, NY)
Interview
Great interview process - 1. Recruiter call 2. Leetcode style technical 3. Scoping style (decomp) interview 4. Frontend coding 5. Another scoping (decomp round).
Interviewers were fun and engaging, and I felt challenged in a positive way.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why do you want to work here?
What are you looking for in your next role.
Recruiter flaked me 3 times and this was always during the time of the interview. I would join the interview meeting and the recruiter would say ahh sorry I got a conflict, next time.
