I'm a 2025 grad and I went through the Palantir new grad SWE process earlier this year. Applied cold on the website in January, got a recruiter reach-out in February, final offer in late March. Here's the honest prep breakdown because a lot of what I read online was outdated or too vague.
The process for new grads: Recruiter screen (15 min, totally standard), then a Karat-style technical screen (coding, 45 min), then a full onsite which for new grads is 3 rounds: two coding, one hiring manager conversation.
What the coding rounds look like: Both rounds I got were medium difficulty. One was a string manipulation problem with a follow-up asking me to optimize for time complexity. The second was a graph problem where the setup took a while to understand and the actual algorithm wasn't that hard once you had the model clear. No DP, no segment trees, no tricks. Clean readable code and explaining your thinking while you code matter a lot.
What they're actually filtering for as a new grad: I think Palantir for new grads is less about algorithm olympiad scores and more about "does this person think clearly under pressure, and can they communicate." The HM round was more like a conversation. She asked what kinds of problems I find genuinely interesting, why I was interested in Palantir specifically versus other companies, and one scenario question about working with ambiguous requirements.
The mission fit thing is real even for new grads. They asked me something like "Palantir software ends up in sensitive environments. How do you think about that?" I had thought about this and gave an honest answer. I don't think they want a perfect answer, they want evidence you've actually thought about it.
Comp for new grad SWE (2026, Denver): My offer was 175k base, 100k stock over 4 years, 20k sign-on. Total first-year closer to 210k. Not SF-FAANG numbers but strong for Denver.
If you're a new grad prepping: Grind mediums, practice talking through your code out loud, and actually develop a genuine position on the mission question. Don't wing that one.