Graduate Scheme
Palantir Application Guide
Two London engineering tracks, one of the hardest technical bars in tech, and no HireVue or psychometric test anywhere in the process.. Every stage of the process, the questions Palantir actually asks, and the prep that gets candidates through, in one place.
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The firm
About Palantir
The business today
Palantir builds enterprise data platforms for institutions with genuinely hard integration problems. Its software pulls large, disconnected data streams into a single ontology so that people can search, query and act on them together. Three products carry most of the story: Gotham, used largely by defence and intelligence bodies for operational planning and mission management; Foundry, the commercial operating system that enterprises run supply chains and manufacturing on; and Apollo, the delivery layer that ships software into environments from public cloud to hardware at the tactical edge.
The commercial model is enterprise licensing and software as a service. Palantir historically leaned on Forward Deployed Software Engineers to build bespoke integrations alongside customers, which made the early business services-heavy. The last few years have moved decisively towards productised software, with standard connectors and low-code tooling letting customers deploy without an engineer on site.
The company is headquartered in Denver and runs major hubs in London, New York, Washington DC and Munich. The London office is a primary engine for European commercial and UK government work rather than a sales outpost, and a large share of its engineering headcount sits there. Recent growth has been driven by the Artificial Intelligence Platform and a go-to-market built on hands-on bootcamps rather than long sales cycles.
Palantir is a polarising employer and it does not pretend otherwise. Its defence, intelligence and immigration-enforcement work has drawn sustained criticism, and the company has leaned into that positioning rather than softening it. You should form a view before you interview, because you may well be asked.
Why people apply to Palantir
Forward Deployed roles carry 25 to 50 per cent travel, stated in the posting rather than discovered later. The culture is direct and low on process, which suits some people and not others. And the mission is not neutral: Palantir works with defence, intelligence and government customers, and that is a reason some candidates apply and others do not.
Scope early. Junior engineers ship production code into systems used by defence, healthcare and industrial customers rather than spending a first year on internal tooling.
A genuinely hard technical bar. Distributed systems, storage, and large-scale data work, with a published competency framework that rewards depth over breadth.
Two different careers under one employer. You can build product or you can embed with customers, and the two lead to very different places.
Divisions inside Palantir's Graduate Scheme
Software Engineer (product)
Day-to-day
Writing production code for Gotham, Foundry or Apollo in a small team owning one slice of a product. Code review, system design, and debugging performance problems at petabyte scale.
Interview style
Coding, complexity analysis, system design, and extending existing code. The six published competencies map almost directly onto this loop.
Extreme difficultyForward Deployed Software Engineer
Day-to-day
Embedded with a customer, building against their reality until their problem is yours. Postings describe going "from hospital beds to factory floors" and expect 25 to 50 per cent travel.
Interview style
Same technical bar, plus far more weight on open-ended problems, ambiguity and communicating with non-technical users.
Extreme difficultyProduct Designer
Day-to-day
Design for complex operational software rather than consumer surfaces. London runs both new-grad and internship openings.
Interview style
Portfolio-led, with the same emphasis on reasoning under ambiguity.
High difficultyTry it now
Score your CV against Palantir's sift
Palantir talent acquisition screens thousands of CVs per cycle. Most are read in under 30 seconds. The candidates who get to interview have CVs that signal commercial relevance fast, in the format Palantir expects.
What Palantir looks for in a CV
Quantified impact
Numbers in every bullet: deal size, team size, percentage uplift, revenue managed. "Led a team" is filler, "led a 6-person team that delivered £400k of revenue" is a signal.
Named firms and deals
Palantir recruiters skim for brand names they recognise. Name your prior internships, the deals you observed, the clients you worked on. Specifics beat generic descriptions.
Industry-relevant language
Use the vocabulary of the graduate scheme world: DCF, comps, LBO, league tables, deal flow. Generic "analysed data" reads as not-yet-in-the-industry; the right terms read as ready.
Tight, structured layout
One page max. Reverse-chronological. Three to five bullets per role. No long paragraphs, no dense blocks. The skim test decides the read.
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The application
How Palantir hires
4 stages, real interview questions, the criteria that decide it, and the moves that separate offers from rejections.
The process, stage by stage
- 1
Online application
Rolling. London new-grad and internship roles reopened 31 July 2026A CV in PDF is explicitly required, and the written application questions are read. Palantir asks for "thoughtful responses", and short generic answers are the most common early rejection.
- 2
Phone interview (one or two)
Typically within one to three weeks of applyingPalantir states these last 20 to 45 minutes and may run on HackerRank or a shared Google Doc. Have a headset that lets you type while talking, and pen and paper ready.
- 3
Onsite loop
In person in London or virtualMultiple back-to-back technical interviews. The format is deliberately personalised to your track and skillset, so ask your recruiter what yours will contain.
- 4
Decision
Varies. Palantir does not publish a fixed turnaroundOffers are made against the six published competencies rather than a single overall score.
What Palantir asks at each round
Coding and problem solving
- Write a function that solves this problem, then talk me through its time and space complexity.
- Your solution works. Now make it handle ten million records.
- Walk me through how you would test this code.
- This code is not mine and it is not documented. Add a feature to it.
- What would you change about the approach you just took?
Open-ended and ambiguous
- How would you design a system to track shipping containers across a global supply chain?
- A customer says their data is wrong. Where do you start?
- You have incomplete requirements and the user disagrees with the brief. What do you do?
- Estimate how much storage this system would need.
Motivation
- Why Palantir rather than a larger tech company?
- Which of our products have you actually read about, and what did you make of it?
- How do you feel about our government and defence work?
- Software Engineer or Forward Deployed Software Engineer, and why?
What Palantir looks for
Code that others can work with
One of Palantir's six published competencies is Writing Good Code. Naming, structure and readability are assessed, not just whether the tests pass.
Comfort with ambiguity
Navigating Open-Ended Questions is a competency in its own right. Interviewers deliberately withhold requirements to see whether you ask, assume or freeze.
Efficiency reasoning
Analyzing the Efficiency of Code is assessed explicitly. Expect to be pushed on complexity and on what happens when the input grows.
Working inside code you did not write
Working Inside Existing Systems is a competency. Much of the real job is extending someone else's system, and the interview reflects that.
Agency
Postings ask for people who "learn continuously, make decisions with incomplete information, and don't wait to be told what to do next".
The edge: what separates offers from rejections
Specific moves most applicants skip. None of them need talent, only preparation.
- 01Pick your track before you apply and say why. Software Engineer and Forward Deployed Software Engineer are different jobs, and "either" reads as not having looked.
- 02Read the six competency guides Palantir publishes at palantir.com/careers/getting-hired. They are effectively the marking scheme and almost no candidate reads them.
- 03Treat the written application questions as a real assessment. Palantir asks for thoughtful responses and screens on them.
- 04Be ready to defend a view on the government and defence work. Evasion reads worse than disagreement.
- 05Practise talking while coding. The phone screen runs on HackerRank or a shared Google Doc with the interviewer watching.
Prep, stage by stage
Drill each Palantir round
Dedicated pages for the rounds Palantir runs. Practise each one on Intervyo.
Pay & culture
Working at Palantir
What they pay
Graduate
Base plus equity and bonus. Palantir does not publish UK graduate bands
Internship
Paid, monthly rate not published
Perks
| Firm | Comp | Hours / week | Exit options |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jane Street | Higher cash, no equity upside | Comparable | Trading and quant research |
| Comparable total, more structured bands | Generally lighter | Big tech and startups | |
| Improbable | Lower | Comparable | Startups and gaming tech |
What working at Palantir is like
- Unapologetically mission-first, and open about its defence and government work rather than quiet about it.
- Small teams with real ownership. Junior engineers ship production code early.
- Directness is the norm. Technical merit and output count for more than tenure or polish.
- The London office is a primary engine for European commercial and UK government delivery, not a satellite.
Timeline
When Palantir programmes open and close
By programme. Use these dates to plan applications across the cycle and submit early on rolling lines.
| Programme | Opens | Closes | Assessment | Offers | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer, New Grad (London) | Rolling, reopened 31 July 2026 | No published closing date | - | - | Product engineering on Gotham, Foundry and Apollo. |
| Software Engineer, Internship (London) | Rolling, reopened 31 July 2026 | No published closing date | - | - | Posting specifies graduating in 2028 and that it should be your final internship before graduating. |
| Forward Deployed Software Engineer, New Grad (London) | Rolling | No published closing date | - | - | Commercial and UK Government variants. Graduating 2027 or before. |
| Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Internship (London) | Rolling | No published closing date | - | - | Commercial and UK Government variants. Graduating 2028. |
FAQ
Palantir application questions
Can a UK student apply to the Palantir Meritocracy Fellowship?
No. The Meritocracy Fellowship requires a US high school certificate of graduation and a minimum SAT of 1460 or ACT of 33, it is based in New York, and it is designed for people pausing or skipping university rather than finishing it. UK A-levels and the International Baccalaureate do not satisfy the stated US high school requirement, and Palantir does not sponsor visas for this track. As of 8 August 2026 the Apply Now link on Palantir's own Meritocracy Fellowship page returns a 404 and the posting is absent from its live job board, so the programme is closed as well as US-only. If you are a UK student, the routes open to you are the London Software Engineer and Forward Deployed Software Engineer roles, at both new-grad and internship level.
Does Palantir use HireVue?
No. Palantir's published process is one or two phone interviews followed by an onsite loop, and no posting or candidate account describes a pre-recorded video stage. If you have been invited to a "video interview" it will be a live conversation with an engineer, not a one-way recording against a timer.
Does Palantir set a psychometric or aptitude test?
No. There is no SHL, Cubiks, cut-e, Pymetrics or Watson-Glaser stage. The only pre-onsite assessment is a coding exercise, which Palantir says may be delivered through HackerRank or a shared Google Doc, usually as part of the phone interview rather than as a separate test to sit in your own time.
What is the difference between Software Engineer and Forward Deployed Software Engineer?
Software Engineers build Palantir's own products, Gotham, Foundry and Apollo, working on distributed systems, storage layers and front-end frameworks from the London office. Forward Deployed Software Engineers embed with customers and build against their reality, which the job posting describes as "a radical commitment to the outcome" and which carries an expectation of 25 to 50 per cent travel. Both are genuinely technical. FDSE suits people who want customer contact and problem ownership; SWE suits people who want depth on a product.
What grades and degree does Palantir want?
Postings ask for an engineering background in fields such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics or Data Science, plus proficiency in at least one of Python, Java, C++ or TypeScript and JavaScript. No minimum degree classification is published. In practice London technical hires skew heavily towards strong grades at research-intensive universities, but demonstrated ability in the interviews carries more weight than the institution.
When do Palantir London graduate roles open?
Palantir hires on a rolling basis rather than to a fixed autumn milkround. The current London Software Engineer New Grad and Software Engineer Internship listings both reopened on 31 July 2026. Because there is no published closing date, applying early genuinely matters more here than at firms with a fixed deadline.
What graduation year do I need?
It varies by role and is stated on each posting. The London Forward Deployed Software Engineer New Grad role specifies graduating in 2027 or before. The Software Engineer Internship and the FDSE Internship both specify graduating in 2028, and the Software Engineer Internship adds that it should be your final internship before graduating. Check the individual posting rather than assuming.
How long is the Palantir phone interview?
Palantir states its phone interviews typically last 20 to 45 minutes, and that everyone starts with one or two of them. The exact number and format are personalised to your track and skillset, so two candidates for different roles will not necessarily have the same process.
Does Palantir have an assessment centre?
Not in the UK graduate sense. There is no group exercise, no case study, no written exercise and no partner round. What follows the phone screens is an onsite loop of back-to-back technical interviews, which Palantir will run either in person in London or virtually.
What format does Palantir want the CV in?
PDF, explicitly. Every early-career posting asks for "An updated resume / CV - please do so in PDF format" alongside written responses to the application questions. Submitting a Word document is an avoidable way to look like you did not read the posting.
What is the American Tech Fellowship, and can I apply from the UK?
It is a separate Palantir programme aimed at Americans, listed on the job board for North America with a commitment type of "Scholarship". Fellows work on Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform and earn a professional certification in it, and strong performers get the chance to interview for a role. It is not a UK route and it is not the Meritocracy Fellowship, though the two are often confused.
Does Palantir sponsor visas in London?
Palantir does not publish a blanket sponsorship policy for its London early-career roles, so treat this as a question for the recruiter rather than an assumption either way. What is clear is that the US-based Fellowship programmes do not sponsor international candidates.
How not to fail
Mistakes that cost candidates Palantir offers
Specific failure modes the firm screens out. None of these need talent to avoid, only awareness.
- 01Preparing for a HireVue that does not exist. Candidates arrive having drilled recorded-answer technique. Palantir runs live phone interviews with engineers. Prepare to converse, not to present.
- 02Revising for a psychometric test. There is no aptitude battery. Time spent on numerical and verbal practice is time not spent on coding, which is what is actually assessed.
- 03Coding in silence. The phone screen assesses reasoning. Narrate the approach, state assumptions, and say what you would test.
- 04Ignoring the published competency guides. Palantir tells you what it marks on, in six guides on its own careers site. Very few candidates read them.
- 05Having no view on the mission. Palantir is direct about its defence and government work and expects you to be direct back. A non-answer lands worse than a considered disagreement.
- 06Chasing the Meritocracy Fellowship from the UK. It requires a US high school diploma and SAT or ACT scores, it is based in New York, and it is currently closed. UK students should apply to the London roles instead.
If you are rejected
What to do next
Palantir hires on a rolling basis, so a rejection is tied to a specific role and moment rather than to an annual cycle.
The other track
Software Engineer and Forward Deployed Software Engineer run different loops and weight different competencies. A near miss on one is not a verdict on the other.
Adjacent London deep-tech
Firms hiring on the same profile include large technology employers with London engineering centres, and the quant trading firms, which run their own separate process.
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Intervyo is not affiliated with or endorsed by Palantir. Process details are sourced from past applicants, the firm's published guidance and our own research; verify timings on the firm's official careers site before applying. Last updated 12 August 2026.
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