Palantir Technologies

We build software platforms that help human experts perform powerful, collaborative analysis of data at scale. Our software is deployed at public institutions, private enterprises, and in the non-profit sector to address the challenges of responsibly making sense of complex, diverse data. Palantir is helping critical organizations do important work, including finding missing and exploited children, combating terrorism, prosecuting crimes, and uncovering fraud, waste, and abuse. We don’t build one-off solutions. We craft technologies that solve entire classes of problems—some of which we haven’t even encountered yet. 

Our Approach to Software:

We believe that human-driven, computer-assisted analysis is more powerful and effective than fully automated approaches. Our software is designed to augment human intelligence by enabling low-friction interaction between users and their data. We don’t collect, host, or provide data. Our software is installed, configured, and run on our customers’ own systems. From medical records and financial transactions to other types of critical but often-overlooked information, our platforms fuse disparate data sources into coherent models of real world problems so that domain experts can easily ask the difficult questions they need answered.

To make this vision a reality, we have assembled engineering teams that combine expertise in distributed systems infrastructure, big data processing, and UX engineering. These teams develop two distinct platforms for fusing and analyzing different kinds of data.

Our Platforms:

PALANTIR GOTHAM: is our object graph and link analysis platform. It integrates and translates raw data from existing systems into a graph of objects that represent things in the real world and the relationships that connect those objects. The real world objects relevant to an organization are specified in a problem-specific data model that we call the Dynamic Ontology. Users import and tag data both manually and via automated importers. Properties capture information associated with each object, and links of different types represent the relationships that can exist between objects.

USE CASE: the CDC uses Palantir Gotham to track food-borne illness and infectious disease outbreaks.

PALANTIR METROPOLIS: is our quantitative analysis platform. Like Gotham, it also imports data from varied sources and resolves data into models. In Metropolis, models are building blocks that can combine to create new first class objects that represent real-world ideas. For example, an Index such as the Dow Jones represents a set of instruments, weighted via some function, applied over set intervals of time. First class objects are natively understood by the platform and can be freely transformed and combined.

USE CASE: commercial banks use Palantir Metropolis to price homes for short sales as an alternative to foreclosure.

The Foundations of our Culture

We’re certainly proud of the culture we’ve built at Palantir – it’s an amazing place to work. We love formal systems, so let’s think of the culture in terms of axioms:

• The best idea wins
• Nothing is permanent
• Keep focused on the mission

The best idea wins

“There are no prima donnas in engineering.”Freeman Dyson

If you have a great idea and the will to see it through, you can affect great change. Nothing is off limits—we’re constantly looking for improvements in our products, our process and in our people. All voices are equal here—we hire people to have an opinion and be creative. We’re intolerant of politicking, ego, and power brokers. If your idea makes the most sense, that’s what we’re doing, regardless of the seniority or role of the person presenting the idea.

Nothing is permanent

“Successful software always gets changed.”Frederick P. Brooks

Sometimes opportunities are here today and gone tomorrow. Sometimes a breakthrough on an intractable problem invalidates our previous efforts. And yes, sometimes we make mistakes.

Keep focused on the mission

“The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.”Fredrick P. Brooks, The Mythical Man Month

We view software as a means of affecting change in the world, not as an end unto itself. Our mission is to help our users, the people doing the hard work on complex, real-world problems. We do this by writing software that enables effective data analysis against complicated, data-driven problems.

In crafting the institution that is Palantir, we've been very careful to make sure that we're engineering the company for sustainability in its most important asset: people.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Our environment is designed to make work energizing and to stimulate the best thinking. We have no set hours—as long as your work is getting done, you're free to work whatever schedule suits you. Some folks come in during "normal business" hours and head home for dinner with their families; others spend 16 hours a day at the office—not because they're working that whole time, but because the office is a great place to be. We don’t even track vacation time—you just take what you need.

Making Life Easy

Focus on what matters:

Making Life Fun

Making Life Special