Palantir
Software Engineer – Query Engines
About this role
Palantir is seeking a Backend Software Engineer to build and optimize query engines that power data-driven decision-making platforms. You'll design query planning systems, improve execution engines, and integrate open-source data technologies while working directly with customers to solve real-world operational challenges.
What you'll do
- Design and implement query planning and optimization systems to convert complex computations into efficient execution plans
- Extend execution engines by improving query operators, parallelism, memory management, and data movement
- Develop and integrate Iceberg catalog capabilities including table metadata, transactions, and read/write operations
- Investigate correctness and performance issues across planning, execution, and storage layers, building tests and benchmarks
- Evaluate and integrate advances from open-source data systems like Spark, DataFusion, and Velox against real-world workloads
- Collaborate with product teams and customers to translate operational needs into engine capabilities integrated with security and infrastructure
What they're looking for
- Backend systems design and optimization
- Query planning and execution engine development
- Java, Scala, Rust, or Python
- Distributed data processing (Apache Spark, DataFusion, Velox)
- Table management and catalog systems (Apache Iceberg)
- Performance profiling and debugging across multiple layers
- Open-source project contributions and collaboration
- Data formats (Apache Arrow, Parquet)
Benefits
- Opportunity to embed with customers through Frontline program for real-world impact
- Work on mission-critical systems supporting lifesaving and operational applications
- Cross-team movement to expand technical skills and context
- Collaborative engineering community with autonomy and leadership growth
- Access to cutting-edge open-source data technologies
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Palantir
Palantir builds data platforms and software solutions that help government and enterprise customers tackle complex operational challenges, with a focus on responsible AI governance and privacy. The company is hiring software engineers and interns for forward-deployed customer roles, infrastructure and platform teams, and specialized privacy and civil liberties engineering positions.
- Website
- palantir.com
Likely interview questions
- Tell us about your experience building or extending data processing systems like Spark, DataFusion, Iceberg, or similar technologies
- Describe a time you debugged a complex performance issue across multiple services or languages—how did you approach it?