Worked for Palantir from 2010-2012. Palantir will push you hard (if you let it, and are interested in doing so); it's the highest-performing team I've ever worked with, and I learned a ton both technically and culturally (how to interview, how to hire, how to productively have high expectations of your colleagues) that has served me well in the other roles -- even though it wasn't immediately obvious what I was learn…
Would you elaborate on the "how to" aspects of the cultural part?
Don't want to go into too many examples, but let's take the "we maintain an incredibly high hiring bar, because good people want to work with good people." Everyone says that; how do you actually execute on that in practice? What interview practices work? One well-known public thing you can see from reading Glassdoor interviews is that the founders try to interview every candidate. One of the most memorable things about my time there is that even the guy who was hired to stock the kitchen went through an intense interview process; which seems like overkill until you meet him and realize the depth of pride, customer service and creativity he brings to his job is every bit as strong as the engineers we hire. Not everyone who says "we maintain a high hiring bar" would go through that kind of effort.
(P.S. re: the above "lifelong friends" comment as well - that guy, who I am still friends with, continues to post photos of particularly well-executed Palantir meals to private social media. So while I respect the feeling that 'it sounds like the military' -- like the military, I'd say it's hard work in the short term, occasionally nonsensical, but for people who are willing to do it it's very much a long-term positive experience.)