Software Engineer – Query Engines at Palantir

A World-Changing Company   Palantir builds the world’s 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   Backend Software Engineers at Palantir build software at scale to transform how organisations 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 organisation 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 both developers and end-users to work optimally. If you’re motivated to develop reliable, performant, and scalable systems, and to design robust APIs and primitives, this role offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on our products and the people who use them.   Frontline   Foundry Software Engineers may be offered the opportunity to Frontline, an exclusive program unlike any other. This unique, short-term assignment involves being embedded with customers, allowing you to work directly with users and gain firsthand insight into how our products are used and the challenges our customers face. Unlike traditional engineering roles, Frontline immerses you in complex, ambiguous problems, empowering you to deliver impactful solutions across some of the world’s most important industries and institutions.   Some of our most successful products were built on the factory floor, addressing real-world problems for the world's most important institutions. These products were developed by some of our most successful product engineers, who began their careers in roles aligned with Frontline responsibilities, gaining a deep understanding of both our technology and our customers.   Frontliners operate across a broad spectrum of responsibilities, much like a startup CTO. They work in small teams to own the end-to-end execution of high-stakes projects. This spectrum ranges from discussing architecture and building custom web apps to conducting workshops with users and strategizing with customer executives. No two days are alike, as each day is diverse and impactful. By witnessing how customers engage with Foundry and experiencing these pain points firsthand, you’ll gain unique insights that feed directly back into our development process, helping to refine and enhance our products. Technologies We Use Java, Scala, Rust, and Python Apache Spark, Apache DataFusion, Apache Comet, and Velox for data processing and query execution Apache Iceberg for table management and catalog interoperability Apache Arrow and Apache Parquet for in-memory data processing and columnar storage Industry-standard build tooling, including Gradle, Cargo, and GitHub. Core Responsiblities Designing and implementing query planning and optimization capabilities that turn complex computations into efficient execution plans Extending execution engines with new capabilities and improving query operators, parallelism, memory management, and data movement Developing Foundry’s Iceberg catalog and engine integrations, including table metadata, transactions, and efficient reads and writes Building shared transformation semantics and execution interfaces for workloads across Foundry’s products and platform services Improving incremental processing so pipelines can reuse previous results and process new data efficiently while preserving correctness Evaluating and integrating advances in open-source data systems, validating their behavior and performance against real-world workloads Investigating correctness and performance issues across planning, execution, and storage, and building tests and benchmarks that prevent regressions Working with product teams and customers to translate operational needs into engine capabilities that integrate with Foundry’s security, data management, and build infrastructure What We Value Ownership mindset and a high bar for correctness. Our systems support decisions and operations that customers depend on. Curiosity about how data systems work, from query optimizers and execution operators to table formats and distributed processing. Strong debugging skills and motivation to follow a problem across languages, services, and layers of the stack. A practical approach to performance, grounded in profiling, representative workloads, and measurable improvements. Interest in applying deep systems engineering to real-world problems, with empathy for the people who use and depend on our software. Experience building or extending systems such as Spark, DataFusion, Iceberg, or comparable technologies, and an interest in learning across the stack. Ability to collaborate across teams and work effectively with the open-source projects we build on. Experience contributing to open-source projects is valued, but not required. What We Require 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production systems. Engineering background in Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics, or a similar field, or equivalent practical experience. Strong coding skills with demonstrated proficiency in one or more languages such as Java, Rust, Scala, or C++. Experience developing database engines, distributed data processing systems, storage systems, or comparable infrastructure, with depth in areas such as query planning, execution, or performance optimization. Strong foundations in algorithms, data structures, and concurrency, with experience diagnosing correctness and performance problems in complex systems. Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work effectively across teams, incorporate feedback, and hold a high bar for quality. Life at Palantir   We want every Palantirian to achieve their best outcomes, that’s 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 we’re investing in our community. Learn more at Life at Palantir and note that our offerings may vary by region.   In keeping consistent with Palantir’s 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 city and or country in which you are employed. If the posting is specified as Onsite, you are required to work from an office.   If you want to empower the world's most important institutions, you belong here. Palantir values excellence regardless of background. We are committed to making the application and hiring process accessible to everyone and will provide a reasonable accommodation for those living with a disability. If you need an accommodation for the application or hiring process, please reach out and let us know how we can help.   Please note that you will never be asked to submit a payment or share financial information to participate in our interview process. 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