Forward Deployed Software Engineer

Palantir Technologies, Ottawa, Canada

Palantir builds software that connects data, technologies, humans and environments.

A World-Changing Company

At Palantir, we’re passionate about building software that solves problems. We partner with the most important institutions in the world to transform how they use data and technology. Our software has been used to stop terrorist attacks, discover new medicines, gain an edge in global financial markets, and more. If these types of projects excite you, we'd love for you to join us.

The Role

Forward Deployed Software Engineers (FDSEs) understand our customers’ greatest pain points and design end-to-end solutions to address them. FDSEs solicit constant feedback on their work from both customers and colleagues, improving our products over time with rapid iteration cycles.

FDSEs deploy ground breaking technical solutions to solve our customers’ hardest problems. Projects often start with a nebulous question like “Why are we losing customers?” or “How can we more effectively identify instances of money laundering?” FDSEs lead the way in developing a solution, from high-level system design and prototyping to application development and data integration. As an FDSE, you leverage everything around you: Palantir products, open source technologies, and anything you and your team can build to drive real impact.

You work with customers around the globe, where you gain rare insight into the world’s most important industries and institutions. We help our customers detect insider trading, improve disaster relief, fight healthcare fraud, and more. Each mission presents different challenges, from the regulatory environment to the nature of the data to the user population. You will work to accommodate all aspects of an environment to drive real technical outcomes for our customers.

Technologies We Use

Core Palantir products provide the foundations for our deployments.
Custom applications built on top of core Palantir platforms.
Postgres, Cassandra, Hadoop, and Spark for distributed data storage and parallel computing.
Java and Groovy for our back-end applications and data integration tools.
Typescript, React, Leaflet, and d3 for our web technologies.
Python for data processing and analysis.
Palantir cloud infrastructure based on AWS EC2 and S3.

Our Principles

Impact: We take on meaningful and challenging projects that change the world for the better.
Dedication: We see projects through from beginning to end in spite of obstacles we may encounter.
Collaboration: We work internally with people from a variety of backgrounds — such as other FDSEs, product teams, and Deployment Strategists. We also work externally with our customers, often on site, to understand and solve their problems.
Trust: We trust each other to effectively manage time and priorities—we don't micromanage. We want to give people the space to think for themselves.
Growth: We push ourselves and our peers to improve themselves and the world around them.
Learning: We often face entirely novel problems, where we need to pick up a lot of new information and learn how to use it to make progress.

What We Value

Strong engineering background, preferred in fields such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics
Familiarity with data structures, storage systems, cloud infrastructure, front-end frameworks, and other technical tools
Understanding of how technical decisions impact the user of what you’re building
Proficiency with programming languages such as Java, C++, Python, JavaScript, or similar languages
Ability to work effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Skill and comfort working in a rapidly changing environment with dynamic objectives and iteration with users
Demonstrated ability to continuously learn, work independently, and make decisions with minimal supervision
Willingness and interest to travel as needed

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected].