I applied through an employee referral and was contacted by a recruiter a day later. We had a 30-40 min phone call where the interviewer asked basic interview questions and asked about my interests. The recruiter thought that I would be a good fit for the deployment strategist role.
A few days later I had a phone interview with a deployment strategist. The interviewer focused on why I thought my background would be a good fit for the position, where I saw myself in 5 years, and my strengths and weaknesses. The interviewer also asked about any problems that I'd noticed with Palantir and how they could be fixed. The interview would have been challenging but I have a lot of experience interviewing and am prepared for almost all questions.
A few days later my recruiter reached out to set up an office interview. In preparation, I tried to learn as much as I could about Palantir through introductory videos. I covered the Object Model, Dynamic Ontologies, etc. A week and a half after that I went to Palantir in Tysons Corner where I interviewed with 3 people over the course of a morning. My first interview focused (again) on my previous experience and how it would be useful at Palantir. The interviewer also asked some general questions about how I would address difficult client situations. The second interview was a video conference. The interviewer did not seem very interested in the interview and I felt uncomfortable. He asked how I would model two different but related data sets. My answer focused on the Object Model and how there are objects, properties, and relationships that you can change depending on what the client is trying to find. My third interviewer asked more about my background, gave me a hypothetical about how to gather data during an emergency situation, and then asked me about superpowers. At the end of the interview, the recruiter told me they would get back to me within a week.
A few days later my recruiter called and asked how I thought the interview went. I think this was a tactic for Palantir to buy time. The conversation ended with the recruiter saying they would get back to me in another week or so.
After more than a week passed, I reached out. They told me they hoped to have feedback on my interview later that day, but they didn't. It seemed quite disorganized. Eventually, they told me that I would not be moving forward because I did not do a good job answering the modeling question. They then praised the rest of my interview and told me to reapply in 9-12 months. While I'm sure I could have given a better answer to the modeling question, I do not think I gave a terrible answer and it seems foolish for a company to not hire someone based on something that they say they will teach you in training. It makes me wonder if that was just their excuse (especially since many of these interview posts say they did not get an offer because of a modeling/technical question) or if something else was going on, and I wish that HR would just be honest (potential lawsuits aside). I was also frustrated with the non-response that I received about what I would need to improve my interview and technical answers if I were to reapply in 9-12 months.