Backend Software Engineer - Defense

A World-Changing Company

Palantir builds the worlds leading software for data-driven decisions and operations. By bringing the right data to the people who need it, our platforms empower our partners to develop lifesaving drugs, forecast supply chain disruptions, locate missing children, and more.

The Role

Palantir's defense product vertical builds mission-critical products for the modern warfighter. We provide a complete ecosystem where customers can securely integrate and visualize their data, and build sophisticated, full-fledged programs such as common operating pictures, alert-triaging inboxes, and resource allocation planning tools driven by rich-ML models. Our customers use our defense offering to perform rich analyses that drive core operations within their organizations - these programs are relied upon for daily operations in the command centers and battlefronts of militaries across the world.

Backend Software Engineers at Palantir build software at scale to transform how organizations use data. Our Software Engineers are involved throughout the product lifecycle, from idea generation, design, prototyping, and production delivery. You will collaborate closely with technical and non-technical teammates to understand our customers' problems and build products that solve them. We encourage movement across teams to share context, skills, and experience, so you'll learn about many different technologies and aspects of each product. Engineers work autonomously and make decisions independently, within a community that will support and challenge you as you grow and develop, becoming a strong technical contributor and engineering leader.

Your day-to-day workflow will vary, adapting to the requirements of our users and the technical challenges that arise. One day, you may find yourself collaborating with other engineers to architect a new system that enables a novel workflow, the next you could be fine-tuning performance to enable low-latency operational outcomes.

Our Product Development organization is made up of small teams of Software Engineers. Each team focuses on a specific aspect of a product and work collaboratively to build cross functional capabilities, streamline user workflows and continuously improve our software's efficiency and reliability.

We're hiring engineers who are passionate about solving real-world problems and empowering developers and end-users to do their work optimally. If youre motivated to develop reliable, performant, scalable systems and design robust APIs and primitives, please join us.

Some examples of product work you could work on are:

Build for high-scale, collaborative, geospatial workflows (Gaia)

Design sophisticated frameworks to enable complex workflows across applications in a single workspace

Develop the next generation of real-time collaborative tooling and data-analysis solutions (Secure Collaboration)

Core Responsibilities

Architecting, developing, and maintaining high-performance, scalable backend services that underpin our our operational data and AI systems

Maintaining high coding standards through the development of guidelines, active participation in code reviews, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and knowledge sharing among your team

Building robust APIs for use by front-end developers and interfacing external systems, and collaborating with front-end developers to integrate user-facing elements with server-side logic

Designing efficient data structures and algorithms to manage large-scale and high throughput data

Optimizing applications for speed and scalability through performance analysis

Actively improve user workflows by collaborating with cross-functional teams, ensuring seamless experiences across product boundaries and a cohesive user experience

Technologies We Use

Different backend languages, including Java, Rust, Python and Go

Distributed systems technologies such as Kafka, Cassandra, Elasticsearch and Spark

Docker and Kubernetes for containerization and orchestration

Industry-standard build tooling, including Gradle and GitHub

What We Value

A deep understanding of server-side logic, efficient data handling, and distributed systems

Strong focus on creating user-oriented workflows and solutions, crossing product boundaries to deliver cohesive and solid user workflows that ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience

Experience building high-quality software in a fast-paced CI/CD development environment

Ability to work collaboratively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals and understand how technical decisions impact the people who will use what you're building

Skill and comfort working in a constantly evolving environment with dynamic objectives and iteration with users

What We Require

Experience in designing and developing features and improvements, as well as supporting and maintaining, live backend systems

In-depth understanding of data structures, system architecture, API development for microservices frameworks, distributed systems and other backend-related concepts and best practices

Engineering background in Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics or similar field

Strong coding skills with demonstrated proficiency in programming languages, such as Java, C++, Python, Rust, or similar languages

Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to iterate quickly with teammates, incorporating feedback and holding a high bar for quality

Eligibility and willingness to obtain a US Security clearance

Salary

The estimated salary range for this position is estimated to be $135,000 - $200,000/year. Total compensation for this position may also include Restricted Stock units, sign-on bonus and other potential future incentives. Further note that total compensation for this position will be determined by each individuals relevant qualifications, work experience, skills, and other factors. This estimate excludes the value of any potential sign-on bonus; the value of any benefits offered; and the potential future value of any long-term incentives.

Our benefits aim to promote health and wellbeing across all areas of Palantirians lives. We work to continuously improve our offerings and listen to our community as we design and update them. The list below details our available benefits and some of the perks that can be enjoyed as an employee of Palantir Technologies.

Benefits

Employees (and their eligible dependents) can enroll in medical, dental, and vision insurance as well as voluntary life insurance

Employees are automatically covered by Palantirs basic life, AD&D and disability insurance

Commuter benefits

Relocation assistance

Take what you need paid time off, not accrual based

2 weeks paid time off built into the end of each year (subject to team and business needs)

10 paid holidays throughout the calendar year

Supportive leave of absence program including time off for military service and medical events

Paid leave for new parents and subsidized back-up care for all parents

Fertility and family building benefits including but not limited to adoption, surrogacy, and preservation

Stipend to help with expenses that come with a new child

Employees can enroll in Palantirs 401k plan

Life at Palantir

We want every Palantirian to achieve their best outcomes, thats why we celebrate individuals strengths, skills, and interests, from your first interview to your longterm growth, rather than rely on traditional career ladders. Paying attention to the needs of our community enables us to optimize our opportunities to grow and helps ensure many pathways to success at Palantir. Promoting health and well-being across all areas of Palantirians lives is just one of the ways were investing in our community. Learn more at Life at Palantir and note that our offerings may vary by region.

In keeping consistent with Palantirs values and culture, we believe employees are better together and in-person work affords the opportunity for more creative outcomes. Therefore, we encourage employees to work from our offices to foster connectivity and innovation. Many teams do offer hybrid options (WFH a day or two a week), allowing our employees to strike the right trade-off for their personal productivity. Based on business need, there are a few roles that allow for Remote work on an exceptional basis. If you are applying for one of these roles, you must work from the state in which you are employed. If the posting is specified as Onsite, you are required to work from an office.