A recruiter wrote to me on LinkedIn about job offerings. I decided to go forward with an internship application. During the process I talked with three different recruiters -- all of them were very kind and one of them invited me for an 1-hour lunch/tour. I got a technical phone interview. I didn't get the impression from the interviewer that he wanted to do interviews and he may not have done a lot of interviews. Maybe he was as nervous as I was, I'm not sure. I ended up using Java even though I was told by the recruiters that I could use any language (I specifically asked about C++ and C#). I have no problem with Java programming but at the time of the interview I hadn't used Java for a year. I did okay on two questions and wrote a solution for another question that I improved with a few hints. In the end I asked standard questions about culture, etc. But also a more bold question about his impression of the handling of the NSA/Wikileaks cases. Those issues means a lot to me. A day later I got a standard email from Palantir (not from any of the three recruiters or from a physical person!) telling me that they didn't see my experience/skills fit the position. I think that was very unrespectful. When I (and one of their engineers) use 45 min for a phone interview, I think the least they can do is to use 3-5 min to tell you why they didn't see you fit such that you can improve, etc. I wrote to one of the recruiters about it and after a few emails I got more details. While I don't agree on all the points, I was satisfied to get an explanation. The explanation from the recruiter made this a neutral experience instead of a negative one.

The process included two phone screens, two technical rounds (one DSA and one learning decomposition), and a hiring manager interview. They had my email wrong, so I kept getting notified only a day before interviews, which really sucked.