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Palantir Technologies interviews FAQs
Forward Deployed Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Palantir Technologies with 3.4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 60% positive. To compare, the company-average is 46.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Forward Deployed Engineer roles take an average of 28 days to get hired, when considering 150 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Palantir Technologies overall takes an average of 28 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Palantir Technologies as a Forward Deployed Engineer according to 150 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 39%
One on one interview: 27%
Skills test: 18%
Personality test: 5%
Presentation: 4%
Group panel interview: 3%
Background check: 3%
IQ intelligence test: 1%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Palantir Technologies (Palo Alto, CA) in Dec 2016
Interview
Applied online in October and got contacted by a recruiter two weeks after that.
First screen was an online coding challenge on Hackerrank. It consisted of one 75-minute coding question. Would suggest practicing some questions on Hackerrank before attempting this.
Second round was a hour-long phone interview with a Forward Deployed Engineer. This was a typical phone screen consisting of 3 parts: First 10 minutes are for talking about your background and behavioral-type questions. Next, a technical question that takes 25-45 mins (sooner the better). Last part is for you to ask questions.
Got a call for onsite interviews in Palo Alto 3-4 days after the phone interview. Onsite consisted of a 3 technical interviews, a product demo and a lunch interview. The technical interviews involved coding and decomposition problems. Got invited for two more interviews after lunch which were conversational. These covered my prior experience and projects, Palantir's culture and the FDE role. Received an offer 4 days after the onsite.
Overall, it was a good experience. Palantir is a young company working on significant problems and everyone is super driven. The office seemed cool, also got a chance to meet one of the founders during office tours.
Tips:
1. Know the company. Their mission, culture, products, projects, founders, etc. Palantir still operates like a startup so culture fit is important.
2. Focus on the impact and outcomes of your projects.
3. Make your assumptions and approach very clear in interviews. The interviewers are smart and vagueness does not go unnoticed.
4. Ask good questions (This follows from the first point). This will help you engage with the interviewers and better understand what you're getting into.
5. Have fun and keep driving. Interview questions are tough for everyone and minor setbacks are normal.
I interviewed at Palantir Technologies (New York, NY)
Interview
I directly gave the technical interview, which was about 50 minutes long. The interviewer was nice, and the interview itself felt collaborative, where I could ask questions and share various problem-solving approaches.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Palantir Technologies
Interview
I applied with a referral
Multiple rounds -
1. HR screen
2. decomposition round
3. onsite with 3 interviews (coding, learning, and decomposition)
4. hiring manager (didn't make it past this one)
Took them about 5 weeks after the hiring manager round to update me that I wasn't selected
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The hiring manager round got really deep into my career motivations
I had behavioral interviews and then 4 in person interviews. The behavioral was straightforward. There was also a data query interview where they taught you a new "language" and had you execute basic queries in it. Then there was a system design interview. I had two of these. The last one they asked me if I was deployed to the moon to identify new species of alien what kind of system would I build.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you were deployed to the moon to identify new species of alien what kind of system would I build.