Senior Backend Software Engineer - Application Development

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.

Core Responsiblities

• Leading the architecture, development, and maintenance of high-performance, scalable backend services that underpin our operational data and AI systems
• Maintaining high coding standards through the development of guidelines, active participation in code reviews, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and knowledge sharing among your team
• Building robust APIs for use by front-end developers and interfacing external systems, and collaborating with front-end developers to integrate user-facing elements with server-side logic
• Designing efficient data structures and algorithms to manage large-scale and high throughput data
• Optimizing applications for speed and scalability through performance analysis
• Actively improve user workflows by collaborating with cross-functional teams, ensuring seamless experiences across product boundaries and a cohesive user experience

Technologies We Use

• Different backend languages, including Java, Rust, Python and Go
• Distributed systems technologies such as Kafka, Cassandra, Elasticsearch and Spark
• Docker and Kubernetes for containerization and orchestration
• Industry-standard build tooling, including Gradle and GitHub

What We Value

• A deep understanding of server-side logic, efficient data handling, and distributed systems
• Strong focus on creating user-oriented workflows and solutions, crossing product boundaries to deliver cohesive and solid user workflows that ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience
• Experience building high-quality software in a fast-paced CI/CD development environment
• Ability to work collaboratively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals and understand how technical decisions impact the people who will use what you're building
• Skill and comfort working in a constantly evolving environment with dynamic objectives and iteration with users
• Active US Security clearance, or eligibility and willingness to obtain a US Security clearance is beneficial but not necessary

What We Require

• 6+ years experience in designing, developing, and leading features and improvements, as well as supporting and maintaining, live backend systems
• In-depth understanding of data structures, system architecture, API development for microservices frameworks, distributed systems and other backend-related concepts and best practices
• Engineering background in Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Physics or similar field
• Strong coding skills with demonstrated proficiency in programming languages, such as Java, C++, Python, Rust, or similar languages
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to iterate quickly with teammates, incorporating feedback and holding a high bar for quality