This is strategic spin -- an emphasis on having technically-savvy people fill sales roles under the 'Business Development' label.
About half the titles advertised as open positions on Palantir's website, across all locations, fall under the 'Business Development' category. They're requesting engineer-level technical aptitude, sure, but the work is lots of pre-sales customer contact.
Ok, that sounds more like an incremental improvement than a complete rewriting of the rules. I wonder what percentage of their total effort goes into that as opposed to building the product.
It's more like an increase in efficiency. The turn all of the engineers into what are essentially BD and sales staff. It saves them from having to deal with high-commissioned sales people, while enjoying the benefits of low salaried, just out of grad school, smart engineer types that clean up well (the company branded track jackets and massive quantities of hair product on display at any of the conferences helps too).
About half the titles advertised as open positions on Palantir's website, across all locations, fall under the 'Business Development' category. They're requesting engineer-level technical aptitude, sure, but the work is lots of pre-sales customer contact.