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The world’s hardest problems need the world’s smartest people.
The Role
The Meritocracy Fellowship is a five-week educational and engineering program for exceptional high school graduates. Fellows study foundational ideas, build software, and then join Palantir development or forward-deployed engineering teams as full-time-equivalent software engineers. They work with real data and customers, ship products, and solve ambiguous problems across engineering, product, security, deployment, and operations.
Summary Generated by Built In
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 Program
We believe meritocracy is the operating system for execution: find ability wherever it exists, give people room to act, and judge them by the quality of what they do.
The American university once advanced this vision extraordinarily well. At its best, it found talented individuals from every background, exposed them to challenging ideas, and sent them into the world sharper, more capable, and imbued with purpose. When it worked, it was extraordinary.
Yet in recent decades, many of our finest institutions strayed from this calling. Admissions committees elevated other priorities. Classrooms rewarded conformity over honesty and rigor. Credentials replaced true capability. Cost became decoupled from value.
We launched the Meritocracy Fellowship to recover that highest purpose: find exceptionally talented individuals, forge them intellectually, give them responsibility, and judge them by their achievements alone. Based purely on merit and academic excellence, graduating high school students will be invited to interview, and select applicants will receive a Meritocracy Fellowship. Those that excel will obtain offers to join Palantir full time.
Skip the debt. Get the real education. Earn the Palantir degree.
The American university once advanced this vision extraordinarily well. At its best, it found talented individuals from every background, exposed them to challenging ideas, and sent them into the world sharper, more capable, and imbued with purpose. When it worked, it was extraordinary.
Yet in recent decades, many of our finest institutions strayed from this calling. Admissions committees elevated other priorities. Classrooms rewarded conformity over honesty and rigor. Credentials replaced true capability. Cost became decoupled from value.
We launched the Meritocracy Fellowship to recover that highest purpose: find exceptionally talented individuals, forge them intellectually, give them responsibility, and judge them by their achievements alone. Based purely on merit and academic excellence, graduating high school students will be invited to interview, and select applicants will receive a Meritocracy Fellowship. Those that excel will obtain offers to join Palantir full time.
Skip the debt. Get the real education. Earn the Palantir degree.
The Curriculum
For five weeks, Fellows grapple with the ideas that shape our civilization. What is the West? Is it worth defending? In what ways is America exceptional within this broader context? And what is Palantir's mission in that context?
Fellows read great works, visit institutions at the frontiers of knowledge and public life, and work alongside one another to build something real. This is the education that universities were designed to deliver: rigorous, Socratic, grounded in the texts and ideas that actually matter. Not a lecture hall. Not a curriculum designed by committee. A room full of people who are smarter than you, expecting you to hold your own.
This initial period lays the intellectual foundation before Fellows join forward-deployed engineering or internal software teams. Fellows spend substantial time building in the first five weeks and learn from Palantirians working across engineering, product, security, deployment, and operations.
Our most vital technologies cannot be created by those indifferent to their purpose. Today's challenges demand builders who are guided by conviction and a clear sense of mission.
Fellows read great works, visit institutions at the frontiers of knowledge and public life, and work alongside one another to build something real. This is the education that universities were designed to deliver: rigorous, Socratic, grounded in the texts and ideas that actually matter. Not a lecture hall. Not a curriculum designed by committee. A room full of people who are smarter than you, expecting you to hold your own.
This initial period lays the intellectual foundation before Fellows join forward-deployed engineering or internal software teams. Fellows spend substantial time building in the first five weeks and learn from Palantirians working across engineering, product, security, deployment, and operations.
Our most vital technologies cannot be created by those indifferent to their purpose. Today's challenges demand builders who are guided by conviction and a clear sense of mission.
The Role
Once Fellows join Palantir's development or forward deployed engineering teams, they are treated like any other Palantir software engineer: joining a team and working alongside customers onsite.
Fellows are not given internship projects; they are given the responsibility of a full-time engineer. They learn the problem from the people who live it, build against real data, ship software, and iterate. The data is real. The stakes are real. The people depending on the outcome are real.
In this role, the challenges you'll seek will require a curious and analytical approach, a sharp intuition for product, and a strong degree of user insight. You will be matched to roles based on your skills, interests, and experience.
The only factor that determines whether you advance here is outcomes.
Fellows are not given internship projects; they are given the responsibility of a full-time engineer. They learn the problem from the people who live it, build against real data, ship software, and iterate. The data is real. The stakes are real. The people depending on the outcome are real.
In this role, the challenges you'll seek will require a curious and analytical approach, a sharp intuition for product, and a strong degree of user insight. You will be matched to roles based on your skills, interests, and experience.
The only factor that determines whether you advance here is outcomes.
What We Value
- High degree of agency, autonomy, and maturity
- Extraordinary ability to confront open-ended and ambiguous problems
- Adaptive and introspective; willing to learn, guide, lead, and follow
- Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with a variety of individuals, including engineers, users, and non-technical team members
- Willingness to learn proactively, make decisions independently, and ask questions when stuck
- Experience with programming, scripting, or statistical packages (e.g. Python, R, Matlab, SQL)
What We Require
- High school certificate of graduation at the start of the internship
- Candidates cannot be enrolled in an accredited U.S. university
- Candidates cannot have previously earned an undergraduate degree
- Spending fall 2027 (August - December) at Palantir exclusively; candidates cannot simultaneously be enrolled in university classes
Salary
The salary range for this position is estimated to be $5,400/month. Further note that total compensation for this position will be determined by each individual’s relevant qualifications, work experience, skills, and other factors. This estimate excludes the value of any benefits offered; and the potential future value of any long-term incentives.
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 state 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 proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer for all, including but not limited to Veterans and those with disabilities. Palantir is 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. If you suspect that you've been contacted by a scammer, we recommend you cease all communication with the individual and consider reporting them to the relevant authorities, such as the US FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
If you would like to understand more about how your personal data will be processed by Palantir, please see our Privacy Policy.
If you would like to understand more about how your personal data will be processed by Palantir, please see our Privacy Policy.
Skills Required
- High school certificate of graduation at the start of the internship
- Cannot be enrolled in an accredited U.S. university
- Cannot have previously earned an undergraduate degree
- Must spend fall 2027, August through December, exclusively at Palantir
- Cannot be simultaneously enrolled in university classes during fall 2027
- Experience with programming, scripting, or statistical packages such as Python, R, MATLAB, or SQL
- High agency, autonomy, and maturity
- Ability to confront open-ended and ambiguous problems
- Ability to communicate and collaborate with engineers, users, and non-technical team members
Palantir Technologies Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as comprehensive for employees and dependents, with mental-health services also available. Multiple summaries consistently portray healthcare as a standout element of the package.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is substantial for both birthing and non-birthing parents, alongside fertility and family-building benefits, backup childcare, and a new‑parent stipend. These programs are highlighted as a strong part of the total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Policies include flexible or unlimited PTO, paid holidays, and in some cases a year‑end office closure. This structure offers a mix of discretion and predictable downtime.
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The Company
What We Do
At Palantir, we're helping the world's most important institutions use their data to solve their most urgent problems. Palantir software helps the world's most important institutions integrate, analyze, and act on their data — unlocking answers to questions they couldn't ask before. From delivering disaster relief to building safer automobiles, we're honored to help make our partners better at their most important work. Together with our customers, we're building the future of national security, healthcare, energy, finance, manufacturing, and more.
Why Work With Us
We build the software that powers the world's most important institutions — the hospitals, militaries, intelligence agencies, and industrial operators that can't afford to fail. The consequence of our work is what makes us different.
Palantir Technologies Offices
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