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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

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

I was interviewed before Jan 2021.

Round 1 - Coding Test 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This was an online test for 90 minutes. 2 programming questions and MCQs related to CS fundamentals were asked.

  • 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 points back to a previous node.

    • Traverse the linked list using two pointers, one moving one step at a time and the other moving two steps at a time.

    • If the two pointers meet at any point, it indicates the presence of a cycle in the linked list.

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

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Palindrome Partitioning II Problem Statement

    Given a string ‘str’, find the minimum number of partitions needed such that every segment of the string is a palindrome.

    The task is to make cuts in the stri...

  • Ans. 

    Find the minimum number of partitions needed in a string such that every segment is a palindrome.

    • Iterate through the string and check for palindromes at each possible partition point.

    • Use dynamic programming to keep track of the minimum cuts needed.

    • Consider edge cases where the string is already a palindrome or consists of different characters only.

  • Answered by AI
Round 2 - Face to Face 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Technical round that lasted for around 60 minutes. The interviewer asked questions related to data structures and algorithms.

  • Q1. 

    DFS Traversal Problem Statement

    Given an undirected and disconnected graph G(V, E), where V is the number of vertices and E is the number of edges, the connections between vertices are provided in the 'GR...

  • Ans. 

    DFS traversal problem on an undirected and disconnected graph to find connected components.

    • Perform Depth First Search (DFS) on each vertex to find connected components

    • Use a visited array to keep track of visited vertices

    • Print the number of connected components and list vertices in ascending order for each component

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    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 to 'N'. Your objective is to determi...

  • Ans. 

    Detect cycles in an undirected graph with given vertices and edges.

    • Use Depth First Search (DFS) to traverse the graph and detect cycles.

    • Maintain a visited array to keep track of visited vertices and a parent array to keep track of the parent of each vertex.

    • If while traversing, you encounter a visited vertex that is not the parent of the current vertex, then a cycle exists.

    • Consider edge cases like disconnected graphs an

  • Answered by AI
Round 3 - Face to Face 

(3 Questions)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Technical round that lasted for around 60 minutes. The interviewer asked questions related to data structures and algorithms.

  • Q1. 

    Merge Sort Problem Statement

    You are given a sequence of numbers, ARR. Your task is to return a sorted sequence of ARR in non-descending order using the Merge Sort algorithm.

    Explanation:

    The Merge Sort...

  • Ans. 

    Implement Merge Sort algorithm to sort a sequence of numbers in non-descending order.

    • Implement the Merge Sort algorithm using a Divide and Conquer approach

    • Recursively divide the input array into two halves until the size of each array is 1

    • Merge the sorted halves to produce a completely sorted array

    • Ensure the output is in non-descending order

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Maximum Difference Problem Statement

    Given an array ARR of N elements, your task is to find the maximum difference between any two elements in ARR.

    If the maximum difference is even, print EVEN; if it is...

  • Ans. 

    Find the maximum difference between any two elements in an array and determine if it is even or odd.

    • Iterate through the array to find the maximum and minimum elements

    • Calculate the difference between the maximum and minimum elements

    • Check if the difference is even or odd and return the result

  • Answered by AI
  • Q3. What is hashing and how can it be implemented?
  • Ans. 

    Hashing is a process of converting input data into a fixed-size string of bytes using a hash function.

    • Hashing is used to securely store passwords by converting them into a hash value before storing in a database.

    • Hashing is used in data structures like hash tables to quickly retrieve data based on a key.

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

    • Hashing can be implemented in programming languages like Python

  • 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 interviewSelected

Skills evaluated in this interview

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I was interviewed before Jan 2021.

Round 1 - Face to Face 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Technical Interview round where the interviewer asked questions based on Data structures and algorithms.

  • Q1. 

    Reverse Linked List Problem Statement

    Given a Singly Linked List of integers, your task is to reverse the Linked List by altering the links between the nodes.

    Input:

    The first line of input is an intege...
  • Ans. 

    Reverse a singly linked list by altering the links between nodes.

    • Iterate through the linked list and reverse the links between nodes.

    • Use three pointers to keep track of the current, previous, and next nodes.

    • Update the links between nodes to reverse the list.

    • Return the head of the reversed linked list.

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Dijkstra's Shortest Path Problem

    Given an undirected graph with ‘V’ vertices (labeled 0, 1, ... , V-1) and ‘E’ edges, where each edge has a weight representing the distance between two connected nodes (X,...

  • Ans. 

    Dijkstra's algorithm is used to find the shortest path from a source node to all other nodes in a graph with weighted edges.

    • Implement Dijkstra's algorithm to find the shortest path distances from the source node to all other nodes.

    • Use a priority queue to efficiently select the next node with the shortest distance.

    • Update the distances of neighboring nodes based on the current node's distance and edge weights.

    • Handle disc...

  • Answered by AI
Round 2 - Face to Face 

(2 Questions)

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Technical Interview round where the interviewer asked questions based on Data structures and algorithms.

  • Q1. 

    Sort Linked List Based on Actual Values

    Given a Singly Linked List of integers that are sorted based on their absolute values, the task is to sort the linked list based on the actual values.

    The absolute...

  • Ans. 

    Sort a Singly Linked List based on actual values instead of absolute values.

    • Traverse the linked list and store the values in an array.

    • Sort the array based on actual values.

    • Update the linked list with the sorted values.

  • Answered by AI
  • Q2. 

    Kth Largest Element Problem

    Given an array containing N distinct positive integers and a number K, determine the Kth largest element in the array.

    Example:

    Input:
    N = 6, K = 3, array = [2, 1, 5, 6, 3, ...
  • Ans. 

    Find the Kth largest element in an array of distinct positive integers.

    • Sort the array in non-increasing order to easily find the Kth largest element.

    • Ensure all elements in the array are distinct for accurate results.

    • Handle multiple test cases efficiently by iterating through each case.

  • Answered by AI
Round 3 - HR 

Round duration - 30 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

HR Round that lasted for around 30 minutes. The interviewer asked questions to know more about me.

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 interviewSelected

Skills evaluated in this interview

I applied via Campus Placement

Interview Preparation Tips

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: Initially test was conducted. But they also considered resume for shortlisting to interview. Even if you do test badly, resume will come to your rescue if it is good enough.
Tips: Test consists of both aptitude and coding. Basic coding skills in C will be sufficient to solve the coding questions.

General Tips: Interviewing people are very friendly during the interview. Concentrate on concepts like linked lists, basic problems on strongs.
Skill Tips: Any basic C programming book.
Skills: Basic Coding, Basic C/C++
Duration: 2.5
College Name: IIT Madras
Motivation: Diverse fields in which company is working.

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)

Software Engineer Jobs at PayPal

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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
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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

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3.8/5

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3.5

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3.9

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3.8

Salary

3.4

Job security

3.9

Company culture

3.6

Promotions

3.5

Work satisfaction

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