Palantir technologies Software Engineer interview experience

I was given a LeetCode-like medium problem and coded up a non-optimal approach first. After that, I was asked to improve or optimize the solution, but I struggled to fully flesh out the final part of my answer, which left a messy impression.

The feedback dynamic was pretty clear: I’d outline an optimal direction only after the initial solution, and when the discussion moved toward refinement, I couldn’t carry the momentum through to a complete, polished end state. I didn’t advance after the coding stage, and honestly the whole thing felt like I was graded on how cleanly I could iterate once