Palantir Technologies Reviews

Pros

Most of these 5-star reviews are so obviously fake, but here are the pros: Ambitious and impressive product that provides real value. Real potential to be dominant software company. Exposure to interesting industry problems.... Many impressive people, mostly veteran (pre 2015) Palantir folk. Comp was solid before inflation-geddon. Corporate spending was loose, but that is changing hard and fast with push towards profitability. Remote friendly. Good name as resume builder.

Cons

Surprisingly chaotic both at the project level and the company level. Distressing levels of toxicity in many pockets, without any organizational checks to prevent/address it. Difficult to navigate the "flat" org which is actually a very political environment. Striking levels of over-embellishment by the company. Too much koolaid drinking. Highschool vibes. While there are people that have good experiences here overall, I think that is entirely based on luck. A bet that could be sensible for some. It will likely stay this way, as the corporate governance is extremely imbalanced even by SV standards. Founders and friends have almost absolute authority for the foreseeable future.

Pros

Buffet for 3 meals a day, smart coworkers and many good people

Cons

I always thought that the concept of a hostile work environment was fake until I worked here. This company treats sales like trash. There is no prevailing reason as to why but they do anyway. The only reason that makes any sense is that this company is comprised entirely of engineers and they never wanted to hire a sales team. Nobody in charge of the sales team has a single day of experience in sales. They try to play this off as if they are learning and iterating (LOL) but this is totally dishonest. There is no reason for them to treat the sales team this way. I have witnessed senior management including the CEO himself publicly berate and dress down sales people for something as simple as being dressed nicely for a customer meeting. Not only is the product exceptionally difficult to sell, but management will do everything they can to stiff you on your commission. They also just fired all of marketing and people have not had leads for up to a year. Read the sales reviews and trust them. You might sometimes thinks that glassdoor reviews are an exaggeration but these are NOT exaggerations. This is less of a job and more of a clown show.

Pros

Free food, great people, cutting-edge tech, and a role that is flexible depending on your skills, interests, and ideas.

Cons

The role requires a lot of autonomy which might not be what everyone is looking for. There is also a high level of variance from project to project so engineers can have very different experiences depending on what they work on.

Pros

Smart engineers and cool customers

Cons

The comp plan is a lie. Most of the sales team (probably 75%) is not closing deals. Once you close something, US Commercial leadership will fight tooth and nail to not pay you. They will not tell you what they are doing either. They will simply refuse to talk to you for as long as they can after your commissions are due. Their direct calculation is that it will cost more to file a lawsuit than you will recover. It is complete and utter cowardice. They also changed the comp plan at the beginning of 2023 and have not released it but are holding all commissions subject to a comp plan that has not been released or even finished. Nobody is getting paid and if you complain they just fire you. I have never seen such unethical business practices from frankly BAD people. They do not care about the sales team and see no value in reps that win business. As far as leadership is concerned, the only real sale is a rolodex sale for $20MM and anything organically sourced is fake and suspect. They think companies are lining up to just hand Palantir money and that sales does not contribute to a sales effort. They will pull on your rolodex and then not pay you or can you.

Pros

Palantir is definitely a great place to work. They take good care of their employees, and hire high quality individuals.

Cons

Leadership is not well aligned and some e-suite individuals are highly over-compensated. There were often times when one leadership team would come in and want us to do things one way, and then in 6 months another director’s team would want us to do things another way. It would derail any real progress towards efficiency. Our org head also did not really have a seat at the table (a yes man who managed up with little interest in managing down given the very high compensation came from the top), so we were constantly going along with whatever initiative was promoted at the time. It was inefficient and took away from the real issues that needed to be solved. This was underlying, and ultimately resulted in many good, experienced, tenured individuals departing from Palantir.

Pros

Great platform and solution and very smart engineers

Cons

Working here in sales is not a great experience. All the sales leaders are ex engineers and have never ran sales team before and have zero experience . They secretly hate hates people and resent having to pay them commission so they do everything they can to not pay you. A sales cycle at Palantir is very like . At least 18 months because what we are selling is very custom and we are asking for multi million dollar contracts out of the gate . Sales people get very little respect and you have to fight to do the job you are hired to do

Pros

Lots of learning opportunities since people are granted the opportunity to move fluidly between teams. Great in office culture and remote flexibility.

Cons

Large teams mean that communication can often get muddled or delayed. Large company also means slower processes.

Pros

Best-in-industry product Company is doing important work

Cons

Sales leadership is weak, no structure or strategy. Company and product are unknown in the market. That will change in the future but it is unknown today. Aggressive expectations for unknown status. Some teams are well lead, but mostly a severe lack of leadership and clearly defined expectations. No rules of engagement across accounts, lots of predatory sales tactics occurring, and very little trust across the sales group overall. Pod leaders are also sellers, so there's a conflict of interest there, and they can grab your deals to "help" you get them to close and get half of your commission in return.

Pros

- Work with smart motivated people - Lots of autonomy and opportunity to choose what I work on - Challenging problems and great tech

Cons

- Very dynamic, teams change all the time and nothing stays the same for long which can be disorientating

Pros

Somewhat good brand recognition for your resume. Decent comp (better comp if you are an eng) Take the brand recognition with a grain of salt since many people WON'T want to hire you after working for Palantir because of its reputation, but some will like that you worked there.

Cons

Sales & marketing is run by former engineers. They do not know anything about sales or marketing, and they do not trust the outside people they hired to do the sales / marketing function. Albeit, the people they hired to lead sales and marketing are some of the most toxic, rude, and generally unpleasant people I have ever worked with. There is no strategy or vision to align to. Overall, there is a culture of trying to undercut your teammates to make yourself look better. Also seems weird that the only people I know of who got laid off or pushed out are people of color.... You will work many hours for it to be unrecognized. There are no promotions or raises.