When does Palantir post internships?

Many Palantir intern listings stay up across cycles and get refreshed with new graduation dates. Students apply through the late summer and fall before the internship, and review is rolling, so earlier is better.

What is the difference between Palantir's SWE and FDSE internships?

Software Engineer interns build Palantir's products such as Foundry and Gotham. Forward Deployed Software Engineer interns work with customers to build solutions on those platforms, which means more ambiguity and often travel.

What is the Palantir decomposition interview?

You're given an open-ended, real-world problem and asked to break it into smaller parts and design an approach. It tests structured problem-solving and communication, not a specific algorithm.

Can high school students work at Palantir?

Yes, through the Meritocracy Fellowship: a paid, four-month fall program for graduating high school seniors considering an alternative to college. Selection is based on merit and academic record.

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Summer 2027 recruiting

Palantir internships: when they open and how to apply

Student engineers at Palantir pick between two jobs: Software Engineers build the products, and Forward Deployed Software Engineers embed with customers. Palantir also runs pathways that pause or skip college entirely, including Year at Palantir and the Meritocracy Fellowship for high school graduates.

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Internships and programs at Palantir

The early-career programs it runs for students and recent graduates, by the names it uses for them.

Software Engineer, Internship: Interns write production code for Gotham, Foundry, or Apollo on a small product team with a dedicated mentor. Listings run in Palo Alto, New York, Washington, D.C., Denver, Seattle, and London, with Defense Tech, Infrastructure, and Production Infrastructure variants. Palantir says this should be your final internship before graduating.
Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Internship: FDSE interns work directly with customers, scoping problems and building custom applications, data pipelines, and LLM workflows against the customer's own data. Listings are split into Commercial, US Government, Intel, and Defense Tech tracks across US and international offices, and the Commercial posting warns of 25 to 50 percent travel.
Year at Palantir: A year-long internship for undergraduates who want to step away from school and work on real customer or product problems. You choose the FDSE or Software Engineer track and are held to the same standards as full-time engineers. Recent listings were in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
Meritocracy Fellowship: A paid, four-month fall program for graduating high school seniors who are considering skipping college. It launched in 2025 and ran a second cohort in fall 2026. Selection is based on merit and academic record, and strong fellows can leave with a full-time offer.
Deployment Strategist, Internship: The non-engineering counterpart to FDSE. Interns go onsite with customers, analyze data, run trainings, and present results. Analytical students from any major fit.

When Palantir posts internships

Palantir's intern listings don't expire the way most do. Many stay up for years and get refreshed with a new graduation window each cycle, so a listing that looks old may be the live one. Students apply through the late summer and fall before the internship, and review is rolling.

Special programs keep their own dates. The Meritocracy Fellowship recruits graduating high school seniors for an August start, and Year at Palantir listings went up between March and June 2026.

Who can apply

The current Software Engineer internship listing asks for a 2028 graduation date, and the FDSE listing asks for December 2027 or Spring 2028. Palantir prefers degrees in computer science, math, physics, software engineering, electrical and computer engineering, or data science, and cares more that you can pick up languages quickly than which ones you know.

Some roles, including the Palo Alto Software Engineer listing and the government tracks, ask for an active US security clearance or eligibility and willingness to obtain one. Applications require a PDF resume plus written answers to Palantir's application questions.

The interview process

Candidates describe one or two phone interviews with a coding question, then a virtual or onsite round with more of the team. Expect a few weeks from first screen to decision.

The signature round is the decomposition interview: you get an open-ended, real-world problem and have to break it into parts and design an approach. Structured thinking and clear communication win here, especially for FDSE. Memorized algorithm patterns won't help much.

Tips for applying to Palantir

Take the written application questions seriously. Palantir reads them, and generic answers stand out for the wrong reason.
Practice decomposition out loud: pick a messy real problem, such as routing aid shipments, and talk through how you'd build software for it from scratch.
Choose between SWE and FDSE on purpose. FDSE is customer-facing with travel; SWE is product engineering. Your written answers should fit the one you picked.

Palantir internship questions

When does Palantir post internships?: Many Palantir intern listings stay up across cycles and get refreshed with new graduation dates. Students apply through the late summer and fall before the internship, and review is rolling, so earlier is better.
What is the difference between Palantir's SWE and FDSE internships?: Software Engineer interns build Palantir's products such as Foundry and Gotham. Forward Deployed Software Engineer interns work with customers to build solutions on those platforms, which means more ambiguity and often travel.
What is the Palantir decomposition interview?: You're given an open-ended, real-world problem and asked to break it into smaller parts and design an approach. It tests structured problem-solving and communication, not a specific algorithm.
Can high school students work at Palantir?: Yes, through the Meritocracy Fellowship: a paid, four-month fall program for graduating high school seniors considering an alternative to college. Selection is based on merit and academic record.