Pros
-Flat hierarchy with an emphasis on personal ownership. At Palantir, I can honestly say that I have never been "managed." Leadership is there to guide you and help you when you need it, but not manage you. This helps you gain a huge amount of personal ownership over your projects which is encouraged. Employees are encouraged to make critical decisions in the field and supported by leadership. -Meritocracy. You are only as successful as you make yourself. You are judged on your outputs and not your inputs. While this is a norm and maybe an expectation in Silicon Valley, its nearly unheard of on the East Coast. -No BS. BS in any form is discouraged. From our no politics philosophy to the idea of only having meetings when absolutely necessary, we live and breath a minimal BS culture. -Transparency. Leadership will answer ANY question you have and not only that but they will do it in front of the entire company. -Make my own schedule. This is important to me as I have a family to worry about and a personal life to manage. As long as I excel and keep performing, no one seems to mind how I manage my time. -The People. This is the biggest differentiator about Palantir. Everyone at Palantir is smart, friendly, unique and generally awesome. I know that I could ask anyone to help me with my work and not only would they step up they'd do just a good a job as I could. This is super rare in a company. -Solving real problems. Being able to quantify the real world results of our work is amazing and it happens daily at Palantir. -Fantastic benefits. If you are from the east coast, no one can beat the benefits.
Cons
-Massive Growth. This is awesome and also the source of most of our problems at the same time. We often don't scale our processes until we realize they are broken. This includes managing people, structuring teams, trying to communicate across teams, etc. The transfer of organizational knowledge has been the toughest problem to hack IMO. -Recruiting. Its none stop and a huge time sink. I know its worth it and we need it to not only survive, but to maintain the pros listed above, but it can be draining at times. -Salary. If you are east coast, this will probably be less than you make now. Regardless, the intangible benefits, unlimited leave policy and stock options more than make up for this. The other job offer I was considering before coming to Palantir was $55k more than what I make at Palantir. Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad I took my job at Palantir, but it would be nice sometimes to be a little more comfortable money wise.