Did the Palantir onsite in February 2026. This was for a mid-level SWE role (L2 in their internal leveling, which maps roughly to senior SWE in the market). I'll do a round-by-round breakdown because the format is weirdly hard to find clear info on.
Rounds (all virtual, 5 total): Coding round 1 - 45 min. Graph problem, medium difficulty. Standard CoderPad. Interviewer was quiet but responsive when I asked questions. Expected walkthrough before coding. Coding round 2 - 45 min. A design-meets-coding hybrid. Given a simplified data model, asked to write functions that operated on it. More real-world than pure LC. The code I wrote would actually run in something resembling production. System design - 45 min. See other threads for detail. I got an operational data pipeline problem. Lots of back-and-forth. Behavioral / values - 30 min. Felt more like a conversation than an interview. They asked about projects where stakes were high. Also directly: 'What's your personal take on working on software that might be used by defense agencies?' I said something honest and they didn't flinch either way. Hiring manager round - 30 min. No technical content. They asked what I was looking for, what I found hard about my current role, what success would look like for me in year one. Very conversational. I think this round is mostly about fit and whether they believe you actually want to be there.
Overall: the day was long but not brutal. The interviewers seemed to actually like their jobs. No 'gotcha' energy.
Did I get an offer? Yeah. Base was around $185K for L2 NYC, with equity on top -- I won't share the full package publicly but it was competitive for the role.
Happy to answer questions. The loop is more navigable than it looks from the outside.