
No, Palantir. Your internships are not worth 5 months, 8 interviews,... - exBarrelSpoiler
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/5ncqti/no_palantir_your_internships_are_not_worth_5/
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kqr
Someone in a related thread (I followed a few links to get there) commented
that

> _Every time this comes up we say give them a contract quote for the time. I
> vividly recall one guy that did, this year or last, and the company said
> "sure" without hesitation. He made like $400 interviewing to work there,
> because he asked one question._

> _It 's simple, you just say "8 hours seems a little excessive to do for
> free, but I'm happy to do it at a billable rate of say $75/hr. If that's
> okay with you I can start within a day." That's it. If they still want the
> work but won't pay for it, that will tell you a whole lot about them._

I'd be interested in hearing peoples thoughts about this!

~~~
joezydeco
Laws of supply and demand apply.

If the person is in demand, and the supply of identical applicants is low (or,
zero, if they really want this one person), then the applicant can command way
more than most people expect.

If you are a college student applying for an intership, I would tend to
believe the opposite applies. Supply is massive. I think asking for any
compensation for time will be met with a quick end to the process.

~~~
emodendroket
If the supply is so massive why are all these companies paying so much for
tech interns?

~~~
iaw
Supply of potential candidates is high, supply of highly qualified candidates
is low.

~~~
Apocryphon
If only there was a way to convert potential candidate into highly qualified
candidates without relying on universities or bootcamps.

~~~
iaw
Sorry, let me elaborate what I mean by "potential." I don't mean candidates
that have potential to do the job extremely well, but candidates that apply
for positions with adequate signals but without the capabilities to do the job
well.

Bootcamps and Universities don't convert potential candidates into highly
qualified ones in this model, they convert non-candidates to potential
candidates.

The highly qualified component comes from more than just education, I knew a
lot of people that got excellent GPAs through diligent hard work but didn't
comprehend what they were learning in a way that would allow them to leverage
the knowledge. I've met C students that were so fascinated with the topics
they studied that they screwed off on school work to cover more breadth
(building cars, satellites, etc.)

A bootcamp/university wont take someone that is diligent and transform them
into someone that's passionate. It can take someone that's passionate and give
them the qualifications to get to interviews though.

------
scarmig
Weird. Palantir isn't just wasting the student's time (which is shitty, but
par for course), but the time of its own engineers and recruiters. How many
engineers' hours have gone into interviewing and reviewing this candidate?

And all for an FDE role. I take this as another countersignal to the quality
of Palantir and its trajectory.

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dmode
This problem extends beyond Palantir and internships. Every job interview I
have been through, you have to go through a recruiter screen, a hiring manager
phone interview, another phone interview with a senior person, first day
onsite with 5-6 people, second day onsite with a homework presentation. ARE
YOU KIDDINg ME ?? I have another job, and I have to constantly lie to find
time to interview with ONE company. Then these guys all complain about talent
shortage and unable to fill up their vacancies. May be, you don't need 20
interviews to determine if a person is a good fit for your role.

~~~
dikdik
Meanwhile, family and friends that are traveling nurses (ie a job that
ACTUALLY effects life and death) have 1 phone interview with a hiring manager
that can last 20 minutes to an hour. That's it.

Then they receive a decision within a week (though often within a day or two).

~~~
dmode
That is amazing. Would kill for an interview experience like that

~~~
dikdik
Right? A family member was out with me at a wine tasting a year ago, stepped
outside for 30 minutes to take a phone interview, and came back. She received
an offer two days later.

I think it all boils down to being in a profession that's in very high demand.

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jstewartmobile
Sounds like an escalation-of-commitment filter. It's like: Hey they made it
through the interview gauntlet. Now we can _really_ haze them!

The sort of person who wants to work at Palantir deserves this anyway, so
score one for karma.

------
rdslw
"Forward deployed enginnering role" \- I so much laugh at this sales bullshine
used these days in US by all marvelous super star human capital development
managers (ie HR people).

P.s. Its dreaded ordinary support, for anyone curious.

------
dvt
The rumor is that Palantir kind of sucks and the only reason most people are
sticking it out is the hope of an IPO soon-ish.

~~~
BlackjackCF
[https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Palantir-Technologies-
Revi...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Palantir-Technologies-
Reviews-E236375.htm)

Wow yeah. These Glassdoor reviews look terrible.

"Cons Very immature staff, no work life balance if you're a bit older than a
recent college grad."

"The company also suffers from systemic poor leadership, which creates a
political, distrusting environment that said leadership refuses to believe
exists. This isn't necessarily a dealbreaker though, just something to be
aware of. I ranked culture & values low, because while Palantir has a great
cultural manifesto, it's almost 100% not reflective of conditions inside the
company."

"Cons \- Low pay + illiquid equity = Don't plan to stay here if want fair wage
at silicon valley \- Expectation for work-life imbalance \- Great place if you
are a fresh grad, not so if you are progressing in your career"

Looks like they're another company that thrives off of soul-sucking fresh
college grads. Disgusting.

------
iaw
Palantir tried to recruit me a while back before Peter Thiel came out as a
Trump supporter. Their pitch is basically "work more for less pay!" hidden
behind buzz-speak.

------
67726e
In this day and age, why is it that companies drag candidates that far along?
For all the talk of a lack of engineers, you'd think companies would be a bit
quicker about it.

When the startup I was working at went belly-up in July, I had to scramble for
a position. There was one local I applied at, I had a handful of contacts at
lean on the HR to fast-track me, etc. By the time they got back to me for a
phone screen several months had passed and I found a good job with another
company.

Having little understanding of HR practices, why is this?

~~~
komali2
I would say in cases like that it's probably other people who also have little
understanding of HR practices. I think the smartest thing my company did was
hire a professional recruiter to supplement the HR team - she brought me on,
as well as maybe 25% of this office, solo. She contacted me within about a day
of me responding to a reasonably well written linkedin JD, stayed on top of me
almost daily, and had sold me on the company, with an offer in hand, within 2
weeks of initial contact.

Just having someone who's job it is to recruit, and who's good at that job,
can make a world of difference. I know a lot of startups just have the
engineering manager or CEO themselves do it, which is a shame, because you can
easily contract it out for something like a 10-20% finder's fee to a good
recruiter/agency. Say what you want, there _are_ good ones out there.

------
diminoten
I know a few folks who work at Palantir, and when they do talk about work (not
often) it sounds like every other company that does IT consulting. I also
don't recall those folks complaining or even mentioning an overly arduous
process for hiring, but I guess that doesn't mean there wasn't one.

Someone else mentions this, but it meshes well with what (little) I know about
Palantir, and it sounds like this person interviewed with a bunch of different
teams, because the recruiter thought they'd be a great fit for the company,
but none of the teams were willing to pull the trigger. This is also a massive
waste of time for the recruiter and the company, so they wouldn't do it unless
they were convinced the candidate would (eventually) find a home.

Maybe the recruiter could have been more transparent about what was going on
with the candidate, but those kinds of things happen everywhere, right? Again,
nothing specific to Palantir, except maybe the fact that the candidate was
willing to go even as far as they did.

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petegrif
IMHO they have a process problem. To my certain knowledge they haven't
followed up and asked why when very very talented people have gotten so sick
of the recruitment process that they have opted out. But if you don't take the
trouble to figure out what is putting off such candidates your HR is messed
up. It's a huge fail.

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aaronchall
Economically speaking, for whatever pool of applicants that they treat this
way, they will only get candidates who really want to work for them, and they
will have their pick of those candidates.

I'm glad to read that the poster had already moved on.

------
spamizbad
What's the appeal of interning at a company like Palantir, especially merely
as a "FDE"? It seems like if you're at that level there are way better
opportunities out there for you.

Big dreams of being a government contractor?

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forinti
It seems to me that they waste a lot of time (and money!) on these lengthy
recruitment procedures. They could at least let the candidate have a roadmap
so that he could decide right away if it's worth his bother.

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e28eta
Sure sounds like the recruiter is trying to find a team that wants the
candidate.

