I was contacted by a Palantir recruiter out of the blue. They didn't share how they'd zeroed in on me. They were seemingly willing to interview me for almost any role - I ended up deciding deployment strategist would be the best fit. I had one phone screen with a recruiter. I was asked to describe my PhD work, and to describe what I knew about Palantir. I was asked how I would explain Palantir to a 6 year old, and to explain why I was interested in Palantir. They asked if I was willing to travel - the DS role can require consulting-level travel. I was a little wishy-washy here, probably a mistake. At some point I was asked to list a weakness of mine as well - I truthfully replied 'networking'. The bulk of the interview was a number of scenarios to respond to. For example: "Imagine you are working with a law enforcement agency, and a police officer tells you 'Palantir keeps crashing', what do you do?". I asked clarifying questions and talked about gathering context on the issue and determining if it was a recurring issue, a problem with data formatting, etc. I meant to but did not say something about 'teaching the officer to fish' rather than just fixing the immediate problem. I did not get any brainteaser questions, I did not get any CS/algorithms/coding questions, though I have a CS undergrad. A few days later I got a brief email saying that I wasn't a match for any opportunities.

They really want to get to know you throughout the process, and see how you think about data in different ways and how you solve problems. You have to build a product which takes a long time.