The second round was the one that really stood out to me because it was a full 3-hour interview and it mixed three different styles: tech comp, decomp, and open-ended discussion. I’d heard people say you can’t really prepare for the tech comp, and that felt mostly true, but I also found that being strong in SQL made a big difference. The decomp portion felt closer to a data case interview, so I spent some time looking at consulting-style case prep materials for data science interviews, which was actually helpful. The open-ended part was less about a right answer and more about how I thought through the problem and communicated it.
Before that, I had a phone interview that went pretty smoothly, and then the process kept moving step by step. I also had a coding assignment early on where I had to work with data in a made-up language they use just for interviews, which was unusual and a little annoying because it’s not something you can really practice directly. In the later rounds, I met with two different deployment strategists, and they both asked the same routine questions, including why I wanted to work at Palantir and a few behavioral questions like when I’d worked with data or how I stay organized. That part felt a bit repetitive, and at times it seemed like they were running through a script rather than really listening. I didn’t get past the second interview, and the whole thing ended with a rejection. My main takeaway is that you should be ready for a long, structured process with SQL-heavy technical thinking, case-style decomposition, and very standard behavioral questions repeated across rounds.
Prep tip from this candidate
Brush up on SQL enough to handle a live tech-comp style data exercise, and practice decomposing open-ended business problems like a consulting case. Also be ready to answer very standard Palantir questions such as why you want to work there, how you stay organized, and a time you worked with data.
