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Palantir Technologies

Is this your company?

Love it. Very, very happy - Forward Deployed Engineer Palantir Technologies Employee Review

5.0
Dec 6, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- I work with some truly brilliant people. The value of this can't be overstated. Every corner of Palantir is full of incredibly talented people (from our Directors to the legal team to the guys who stock the shelves in the kitchen... highly talented and hard-working people). - The work seriously, actually matters. When you build the product and train the users who are finding bad guys, solving crimes, preventing money from disappearing to fraud, etc. It's great to point at a headline and say "my work enabled that." - Low levels are empowered to own their work. This is super important. By and large, most employees have clear expectations of their work output and are trusted to own it. I've seen some complaints about meddling managers, but I don't see it at all. It's standard to have a ~30 minute 1:1 with your lead, which I really like. My 1:1's are essentially my lead asking "How are things going? Anything blocking you? What can I do to help you out?" Super low overhead (and very healthy). - And I have to highlight the equity upside... Palantir has the potential to be hugely valuable, which, in turn, has the potential to be very good for employees.

Cons

Reading some of the other reviews, it's like we're not working at the same company... it's honestly mind boggling. Yes, we are growing quickly and that induces lots of struggles (any company that's roughly doubling each year has these issues), but it's still a great place to work. I also second the other review about "work-life balance" being perceived as a con, but it's not to me. Yes, I work a lot a lot... but I work on my own schedule, have unlimited vacation time, and the company treats us exceptionally well (comfortable offices, very accommodating IT teams, food/drink, etc). I'm genuinely happy at work (and I wake up every day excited to go to work)... so yeah, the hours are long, but for me, I like that. If you are expecting a 9 to 5, clock-in/clock-out type of job, you're not going to like Palantir. For me? It's great.

Explore other reviews about Palantir Technologies

5.0
Jun 21, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Hyper intelligent people, interesting problem sets, amazing technology, three meals a day, flexibility

Cons

Pay is below market, workload is exceptionally high

2.0
Mar 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Most talented, smart and industrious group of people I've ever worked with. Unfortunately, smart people can be easily deceived.

Cons

If you are in Business Development (BD) - i.e. Delta or Echo - this job will be your life. They deliberately underhire - they claim it's to maintain the culture, but really it's to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of you. You are thrown into chaotic situations with no way out but to "chew glass and excrete product". Don't let the flat heirarchy and encouragement of confrontation / open debate deceive you. Karp has majority founder shares and calls the shots. The company is a dictatorship, not a democracy. Resourcing is a black box. If you are a U.S person without a clearance, you will be bait-and-switched into defense even if you thought you could avoid it. With clearance, you'll end up on something much worse. Trust your gut - the company's leadership are not wise, nuanced philosophers - they are spineless, shifty edgelords with no ethical red lines. As a FDE, you will spend half your time working around stupid limitations in the platform you could not foresee when making grand promises to the customer. Foundry is not a cutting edge product, just like Microsoft Suite is not a cutting edge product. Its just too broad for any other company to easily copy it. Palantir just brought middle-of-the-road Silicon valley tech to old-school government, slapped some AI integration onto it and shrouded it in a veil of mystery to make it seem cool and mysterious and appeal to retail investors.

5
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