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PayPal Software Engineer Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Updated 2 Dec 2024

Top PayPal Software Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

  • Q1. Cycle Detection in a Singly Linked List Determine if a given singly linked list of integers forms a cycle or not. A cycle in a linked list occurs when a node's next poin ...read more
  • Q2. Painting Fences Problem Statement You are given ‘N’ fences. Your task is to compute the total number of ways to paint these fences using only 2 colors, such that no more ...read more
  • Q3. Cycle Detection in Undirected Graph Problem Statement You are provided with an undirected graph containing 'N' vertices and 'M' edges. The vertices are numbered from 1 t ...read more
View all 41 questions

PayPal Software Engineer Interview Experiences

24 interviews found

Interview experience
3
Average
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
4-6 weeks
Result
Selected Selected

I applied via Referral and was interviewed before Apr 2023. There was 1 interview round.

Round 1 - Technical 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Question about the famous island problem
Interview experience
4
Good
Difficulty level
Moderate
Process Duration
Less than 2 weeks
Result
Selected Selected

I applied via Instahyre and was interviewed before Oct 2022. There were 4 interview rounds.

Round 1 - Resume Shortlist 
Pro Tip by AmbitionBox:
Keep your resume crisp and to the point. A recruiter looks at your resume for an average of 6 seconds, make sure to leave the best impression.
View all tips
Round 2 - Coding Test 

DSA questions medium and hard

Round 3 - Case Study 

System design Notification service

Round 4 - Technical 

(1 Question)

  • Q1. Low level design: sql queries

Software Engineer Interview Questions Asked at Other Companies

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Q3. Find the Duplicate Number Problem Statement Given an integer arra ... read more
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asked in Paytm
Q5. Puzzle : 100 people are standing in a circle .each one is allowed ... read more

Interview Questionnaire 

1 Question

  • Q1. Problem solving and system design questions

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Problem solving questions are not too difficult but may be uncommon. So only preparing from the net may not be enough and candidate need to find the solution during interview. Understanding of many latest technologies and commonly used patterns would help system design rounds.

I was interviewed before May 2021.

Round 1 - Coding Test 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

late Morning

  • Q1. 

    Painting Fences Problem Statement

    You are given ‘N’ fences. Your task is to compute the total number of ways to paint these fences using only 2 colors, such that no more than 2 adjacent fences have the sa...

  • Ans. 

    The task is to compute the total number of ways to paint 'N' fences using 2 colors, such that no more than 2 adjacent fences have the same color.

    • Use dynamic programming to solve the problem efficiently.

    • Consider two cases: when the last two fences have the same color and when they have different colors.

    • Implement a solution that calculates the number of ways to paint 'N' fences modulo 10^9 + 7.

    • For N = 2, there are 4 vali...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Cycle Detection in a Directed Graph

    Determine if a given directed graph contains a cycle. Return true if at least one cycle is found, otherwise return false.

    Input:

    T
    The first line consists of the integ...
  • Ans. 

    Detect if a directed graph contains a cycle.

    • Use depth-first search (DFS) to detect cycles in the graph.

    • Maintain a visited array to keep track of visited vertices.

    • If a vertex is visited again during DFS and it is not the parent of the current vertex, then a cycle exists.

    • Return true if a cycle is found, false otherwise.

  • Answered by AI
Round 2 - Face to Face 

(1 Question)

Round duration - 30 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Technical Interview. The round went on for about 20 min

  • Q1. 

    Painter's Partition Problem

    You are given an array/list of length 'N'. Each element of the array/list represents the length of a board. There are 'K' painters available to paint these boards. Each unit of...

  • Ans. 

    Find the minimum time required for 'K' painters to paint 'N' boards with given lengths.

    • Use binary search to find the minimum and maximum possible time to paint all boards.

    • Iterate through the possible time range and check if it is feasible to paint all boards within that time.

    • Keep track of the number of painters used and update the time range accordingly.

  • Answered by AI
Round 3 - Face to Face 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 30 Minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Technical interview 2

  • Q1. 

    Cycle Detection in a Singly Linked List

    Determine if a given singly linked list of integers forms a cycle or not.

    A cycle in a linked list occurs when a node's next points back to a previous node in the ...

  • Ans. 

    Detect if a singly linked list forms a cycle by checking if a node's next pointer points back to a previous node.

    • Use Floyd's Cycle Detection Algorithm to determine if a cycle exists in the linked list.

    • Maintain two pointers, one moving at twice the speed of the other, if they meet at some point, there is a cycle.

    • If one of the pointers reaches the end of the list (null), there is no cycle.

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Reverse Linked List Problem Statement

    Given a singly linked list of integers, return the head of the reversed linked list.

    Example:

    Initial linked list: 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> NULL
    Reversed link...
  • Ans. 

    Reverse a singly linked list of integers and return the head of the reversed linked list.

    • Iterate through the linked list and reverse the pointers to point to the previous node instead of the next node.

    • Keep track of the previous, current, and next nodes while reversing the linked list.

    • Update the head of the reversed linked list as the last node encountered during reversal.

  • Answered by AI
Round 4 - HR 

Round duration - 40 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Hiring Manger, timing was late morning

Interview Preparation Tips

Professional and academic backgroundI applied for the job as Software Engineer in ChennaiEligibility criteriaAbove 8 CGPAPaypal interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - Arrays, Strings, DP, Trees, Graphs, Linked Lists, Stacks, QueuesTime required to prepare for the interview - 5 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Be strong with basics 
Tip 2 : Learn any one programming language end to end.
Tip 3 : Attempting Regular contests on various coding platforms

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Be honest and clear on the topics you know
Tip 2 : Be confident on all the projects you mentioned in resume end to end

Final outcome of the interviewSelected

Skills evaluated in this interview

PayPal interview questions for designations

 Senior Software Engineer

 (8)

 Software Engineer III

 (3)

 Software Engineer II

 (2)

 Software Engineer Intern

 (1)

 Staff Software Engineer

 (1)

 Senior Software Engineer 2

 (3)

 Software Engineer Level 1

 (3)

 Software Development Engineer II

 (1)

I was interviewed before Jan 2021.

Round 1 - Video Call 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Technical interview round where the Interviewer asked me questions based on data structures and algorithms.

  • Q1. 

    Design a Constant Time Data Structure

    Create a data structure that maintains mappings between keys and values, supporting the following operations in constant time:

    1. INSERT(key, value): Add or update t...
  • Ans. 

    Design a constant time data structure for key-value mappings with operations like INSERT, DELETE, SEARCH, GET, GET_SIZE, and IS_EMPTY.

    • Use a hash table to store key-value pairs for constant time operations.

    • Implement INSERT by hashing the key and storing the value at the corresponding index.

    • For DELETE, simply remove the key-value pair from the hash table.

    • SEARCH can be done by checking if the key exists in the hash table.

    • ...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Integer to Roman Conversion

    Given an integer N, convert it to its corresponding Roman numeral representation. Roman numerals comprise seven symbols: I, V, X, L, C, D, and M.

    Example:

    Input:
    N = 2
    Outp...
  • Ans. 

    Convert an integer to its corresponding Roman numeral representation.

    • Create a mapping of integer values to Roman numeral symbols

    • Iterate through the mapping in descending order of values and build the Roman numeral representation

    • Handle special cases like 4, 9, 40, 90, 400, 900 separately

    • Repeat the process for each digit of the input integer

  • Answered by AI
Round 2 - Video Call 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Technical interview round where the Interviewer asked me questions based on data structures and algorithms.

  • Q1. 

    Total Area of Overlapping Rectangles Problem Statement

    Determine the total area covered by two given rectangles on a 2-D coordinate plane, which may have an overlapping area.

    Input:

    The first line conta...
  • Ans. 

    Calculate the total area covered by two overlapping rectangles on a 2-D coordinate plane.

    • Parse input coordinates for two rectangles

    • Calculate the area of each rectangle

    • Find the overlapping area by determining the intersection of the rectangles

    • Calculate the total area by adding the areas of both rectangles and subtracting the overlapping area

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Longest Repeating Subsequence Problem Statement

    Given a string st, your task is to determine the length of the longest repeating subsequence such that no two subsequences have the same character at the sa...

  • Ans. 

    The task is to find the length of the longest repeating subsequence in a string with no same characters at the same position.

    • Iterate through the string and find the longest repeating subsequence by comparing characters at different positions.

    • Use dynamic programming to keep track of the longest repeating subsequence found so far.

    • Ensure that no two subsequences have the same character at the same position.

    • Example: For in...

  • Answered by AI
Round 3 - Video Call 

(1 Question)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This was a system design round.

  • Q1. How would you design a rate limiter?
  • Ans. 

    Rate limiter can be designed using token bucket algorithm to control the rate of requests.

    • Use token bucket algorithm to control the rate of requests

    • Set a limit on the number of requests allowed within a certain time frame

    • Track the number of requests made and refill the bucket at a constant rate

    • Reject requests that exceed the limit

  • Answered by AI

Interview Preparation Tips

Eligibility criteriaAbove 7 CGPAPaypal interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, Aptitude, OOPSTime required to prepare for the interview - 6 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Must do Previously asked Interview as well as Online Test Questions.
Tip 2 : Go through all the previous interview experiences from Codestudio and Leetcode.
Tip 3 : Do at-least 2 good projects and you must know every bit of them.

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Have at-least 2 good projects explained in short with all important points covered.
Tip 2 : Every skill must be mentioned.
Tip 3 : Focus on skills, projects and experiences more.

Final outcome of the interviewRejected

Skills evaluated in this interview

Get interview-ready with Top PayPal Interview Questions

I was interviewed before Dec 2020.

Round 1 - Video Call 

(1 Question)

Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

The interview was held in the evening on a weekday, Interview was nice and quite experienced, he asked me about my previous experience in the area and they told me about the team and work for which they were hiring, we did some discussion on that. Meanwhile, I was also asked a few questions on Database and SQL.

  • Q1. 

    Find Magic Index in Sorted Array

    Given a sorted array A consisting of N integers, your task is to find the magic index in the given array, where the magic index is defined as an index i such that A[i] = i...

  • Ans. 

    Find the magic index in a sorted array where A[i] = i.

    • Iterate through the array and check if A[i] = i for each index i

    • Utilize binary search for a more efficient solution

    • Handle cases where there are multiple magic indices or none at all

  • Answered by AI
Round 2 - Coding Test 

(1 Question)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

The interview was in the afternoon. There were some glitches with the teams meeting but it got sorted out in a few minutes. This round was purely coding based. He started with questions on arrays, linked lists, and string manipulation with an increasing level of hardness. The tricky part was that the online editor I was given for writing the code was not an IDE but a simple text editor, so I wasn't getting any help in terms of code completion or syntax errors or syntax highlighting.

  • Q1. 

    Find All Pairs Adding Up to Target

    Given an array of integers ARR of length N and an integer Target, your task is to return all pairs of elements such that they add up to the Target.

    Input:

    The first line ...
  • Ans. 

    The task is to find all pairs of elements in an array that add up to a given target.

    • Iterate through the array and for each element, check if the difference between the target and the element exists in a hash set.

    • If it exists, add the pair to the result. If not, add the element to the hash set.

    • Handle cases where the same element is used twice in a pair.

    • Return (-1, -1) if no pair is found.

  • Answered by AI

Interview Preparation Tips

Professional and academic backgroundI applied for the job as Software Engineer in BangaloreEligibility criteriaNone, as I am experienced professionalPaypal interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - Data structures, Algorithms, System Design, Javascript, Database, OOPsTime required to prepare for the interview - 3 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Always keep your focus on learning the basics, they should be rock solid
Tip 2 : Don't try to cram things days or weeks before interviews, that never helps. Try to learn little by little every day incrementally.
Tip 3 : Don't try to target any specific company, it almost never works out, just stay true to yourself and keep doing the hard work, opportunity will come to you eventually.
Tip 4 : If you need to prepare in a short time, I would suggest doing the 30-day interview challenge on Leetcode

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Keep it short and simple, don't clutter with lots of text, try to convey things using bullet points instead of paragraphs
Tip 2 : Don't use fancy graphics and make sure the resume is not more than 1 page (or maybe 2 in case you have more experience)

Final outcome of the interviewSelected

Skills evaluated in this interview

Software Engineer Jobs at PayPal

View all

Interview Questionnaire 

1 Question

  • Q1. How is MongoDB scalable?
  • Ans. 

    MongoDB is scalable due to its ability to horizontally partition data across multiple servers.

    • MongoDB uses sharding to distribute data across multiple servers.

    • Sharding allows for horizontal scaling by adding more servers to the cluster.

    • MongoDB also supports replica sets for high availability and fault tolerance.

    • Indexes can be created on any field in a MongoDB document, allowing for efficient querying of large datasets.

  • Answered by AI

Skills evaluated in this interview

I applied via Company Website and was interviewed in Oct 2020. There was 1 interview round.

Interview Questionnaire 

2 Questions

  • Q1. Rate Limiter Design, Code Hash map from scratch, Integer to roman, rectangle overlap, repeating non overlapping subsequence in a given string
  • Q2. Few questions related to SQL, Merchant Onboard ing design, Restaurant design

Interview Preparation Tips

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Leetcode, Interviewbit PayPal questions

Software Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image Jeevan Sankar

posted on 3 Dec 2016

I applied via Campus Placement and was interviewed in Dec 2016. There were 5 interview rounds.

Interview Questionnaire 

4 Questions

  • Q1. Questions about projects
  • Q2. Why Paypal?
  • Ans. 

    Paypal is a leading online payment platform with a strong reputation and global presence.

    • Paypal is a well-established and trusted online payment platform used by millions of users worldwide.

    • It offers secure and convenient payment options for both individuals and businesses.

    • Paypal has a strong focus on innovation and technology, making it an exciting place to work for software engineers.

    • Working at Paypal provides opport...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q3. What does Paypal do?
  • Ans. 

    Paypal is a digital payment platform that allows individuals and businesses to make online transactions.

    • Paypal provides a secure way to send and receive money online.

    • It allows users to link their bank accounts, credit cards, or debit cards to their Paypal account.

    • Users can make payments to merchants or individuals using their Paypal balance or linked payment methods.

    • Paypal offers buyer and seller protection, dispute re...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q4. How do you see yourself in 5 years?
  • Ans. 

    In 5 years, I see myself as a senior software engineer leading a team of developers on innovative projects.

    • Continuing to enhance my technical skills and knowledge through ongoing learning and certifications

    • Taking on more leadership responsibilities and mentoring junior team members

    • Contributing to the development of cutting-edge software solutions

    • Building strong relationships with colleagues and stakeholders to drive pr

  • Answered by AI

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: One Programming and 15 multiple choice Questions.
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Questions: 16

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: All details about projects you have written on resume. Some different implementation of some parts of your project.

Skills: Knowledge about Database Managements Systems, Problem Solving Skills
College Name: IIT Madras

Software Engineer Interview Questions & Answers

user image leninkumar babu

posted on 3 Dec 2016

I applied via Campus Placement and was interviewed in Dec 2016. There were 5 interview rounds.

Interview Questionnaire 

11 Questions

  • Q1. Detecting loop in linked list
  • Ans. 

    Detecting loop in a linked list

    • Use two pointers, one moving one node at a time and the other moving two nodes at a time

    • If there is a loop, the two pointers will eventually meet

    • If any of the pointers reach the end of the list, there is no loop

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. Write code for dfs
  • Ans. 

    DFS (Depth-First Search) is a graph traversal algorithm that explores as far as possible along each branch before backtracking.

    • DFS uses a stack to keep track of visited nodes and explore adjacent nodes.

    • It can be implemented recursively or iteratively.

    • DFS is useful for solving problems like finding connected components, detecting cycles, and solving mazes.

  • Answered by AI
  • Q3. How to find cycle in graph
  • Ans. 

    To find a cycle in a graph, use depth-first search (DFS) and keep track of visited nodes.

    • Implement DFS algorithm to traverse the graph

    • Maintain a visited array to keep track of visited nodes

    • If a visited node is encountered again during DFS, a cycle exists

  • Answered by AI
  • Q4. What is hashing and how will you implement?
  • Ans. 

    Hashing is a process of converting data into a fixed-size numerical value called a hash code.

    • Hashing is used to quickly retrieve data from large datasets.

    • It is commonly used in data structures like hash tables and hash maps.

    • Hash functions should be fast, deterministic, and produce unique hash codes for different inputs.

    • Examples of hash functions include MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256.

  • Answered by AI
  • Q5. Questions related to to resume
  • Q6. No of pairs between 1 and N satisfy relation pow(a,3)+pow(b,3)=pow(c,3)+pow(d,3).a,b,c,d<=N
  • Ans. 

    The question asks for the number of pairs between 1 and N that satisfy a specific mathematical relation.

    • The relation is pow(a,3) + pow(b,3) = pow(c,3) + pow(d,3)

    • The values of a, b, c, and d should be less than or equal to N

    • Count the number of pairs that satisfy the relation

  • Answered by AI
  • Q7. -----.php?pid=514
  • Q8. Questions related to resume
  • Q9. Explain Merge sort
  • Ans. 

    Merge sort is a divide-and-conquer algorithm that recursively divides an array into two halves, sorts them, and then merges them.

    • Divide the array into two halves

    • Recursively sort each half

    • Merge the sorted halves back together

    • Repeat until the entire array is sorted

  • Answered by AI
  • Q10. Why do you want to join in paypal?
  • Ans. 

    I want to join PayPal because of its innovative technology, global impact, and strong company culture.

    • Innovative technology - PayPal is known for its cutting-edge technology and digital payment solutions.

    • Global impact - Working at PayPal would allow me to contribute to a company that has a worldwide reach and influence.

    • Strong company culture - I value a company that prioritizes diversity, inclusion, and employee well-b...

  • Answered by AI
  • Q11. Explain anything whatever you learned recently?
  • Ans. 

    I recently learned about the benefits of using Docker for containerization.

    • Docker allows for easy packaging and deployment of applications

    • It helps in creating consistent environments across different platforms

    • Docker containers are lightweight and efficient

    • Example: I used Docker to containerize a microservices architecture for a recent project

  • Answered by AI

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Test
Experience: coding question related to palindrome portioning.MCQs related to cs fundamentals
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Skills: General Coding And Problem Solving
College Name: IIT Madras

Skills evaluated in this interview

PayPal Interview FAQs

How many rounds are there in PayPal Software Engineer interview?
PayPal interview process usually has 2-3 rounds. The most common rounds in the PayPal interview process are Technical, Coding Test and One-on-one Round.
How to prepare for PayPal Software Engineer interview?
Go through your CV in detail and study all the technologies mentioned in your CV. Prepare at least two technologies or languages in depth if you are appearing for a technical interview at PayPal. The most common topics and skills that interviewers at PayPal expect are Financial Services, SQL, Oracle, Agile and Coding.
What are the top questions asked in PayPal Software Engineer interview?

Some of the top questions asked at the PayPal Software Engineer interview -

  1. How would I explain the concept of prime number to an illitera...read more
  2. Suggest as many methods as possible for finding the nth largest element in an u...read more
  3. what is hashing and how will you impleme...read more

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PayPal Software Engineer Interview Process

based on 12 interviews

2 Interview rounds

  • Coding Test Round
  • Technical Round
View more
PayPal Software Engineer Salary
based on 259 salaries
₹12 L/yr - ₹50.3 L/yr
249% more than the average Software Engineer Salary in India
View more details

PayPal Software Engineer Reviews and Ratings

based on 25 reviews

3.8/5

Rating in categories

3.5

Skill development

3.9

Work-life balance

3.8

Salary

3.4

Job security

3.9

Company culture

3.6

Promotions

3.5

Work satisfaction

Explore 25 Reviews and Ratings
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