PayPal Interview Experience for Software Engineer

Hello everyone,

I cleared round 1 of the PayPal Software Summer Internship. I received a notification via email that my technical interview was scheduled for a week later.

Firstly, I was not sure that it was an SE role, as I had received a mail for a technical support role earlier.

I went through all the available resources and revised the previously asked questions in PayPal. I prepared for the interview for two days only.

I was tensed and worried as I was less prepared. Finally, the day of the technical interview arrived. My technical interview was scheduled for 07-03-2023 at 10:30 a.m.

Coming to the Technical round

• The interviewer introduced himself and asked me to introduce myself.

I introduced myself, made him aware of my skills and projects, and told him that I was doing an internship at Codeclause as a web development intern, etc.

•  The interviewer then asked me to explain all my projects in detail and what work I was doing as a web development intern.

I explained my projects to him so that he understood them, and then I told him that I was assigned some tasks and projects at Codeclause and that I developed a few there.

There was a good discussion regarding projects in the round.

DBMS and SQL 

• Then he asked me, “Which programming language do you like and prefer, and why?”
• He inquired whether I was familiar with SQL. I told him I was familiar with SQL and explained what it was.
• Then the interviewer started asking me questions about DBMS and SQL.
• The interviewer asked basic questions about DBMS.
• The interviewer asked me to explain all the joins and their types in detail. I explained to him all questions related to DBMs and joins.
• Then the interviewer asked me whether the inner join and intersect commands are the same. I was confused and unable to answer, and I told him that I was unable to remember them.

After discussing DBMS and SQL for some time, the interviewer started asking questions about DSA.

DSA PART 

• The interviewer began with array and asked me to explain what that was and how it worked. and he asked a few questions about arrays.
• He inquired about array applications in real life.
• Then the interviewer asked me questions about stacks and how they work. and all the principles it follows?
• He inquired about stack applications in real life.
• He gave me an example related to stacks and asked whether it followed the principle of LIFO or FIFO.(EXAMPLE: UNDO OPERATION OF KEYBOARD)
• Then the interviewer started asking me questions about queues and the types of queues.
• He asked him the difference between stacks and queues.
• The interviewer was asking about the real-life applications of every data structure.
• Then, the interviewer asked me to explain the complete hierarchy of data structures in detail.
• I was unable to remember them, and I asked the interviewer for a hint.
• He made a suggestion (LINEAR AND NON-LINEAR DATA STRUCTURES).
• Then I was able to tell them.
• The interviewer then asked me to explain all the sorting methods available. I explained to him all six sorting methods and the TC of each method.

Then the interviewer shifted toward the coding part.

• He gave me two arrays with a few null values and asked me to merge them and return the median.

      I explained to him two approaches, which I could remember.

• Approach 1

I told him that I can append the first array or vector, or I will use a separate vector and insert the elements and sort the elements. I discussed the time and space complexities of the preceding approaches.

• Approach 2: Using Two Pointers.

The interview asked me to code in any of the two approaches I described and I did and was able to code them

He again asked me questions on arrays.

• He gave me an array with “n” elements and asked me to print the elements with “N/2 FREQUENCY AND THE COUNT.”

As it had already been an hour since the interview began, the interviewer told me that he would give me another question.

Java Part

• The interviewer inquired as to what elements, classes, or objects I intended to use to DESIGN A LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.
• He asked me to give an outer view of that and asked me to write sample code in Java.
• I told him that I would be using a couple of classes, storing information in them, and calling the methods by creating an object. The interviewer then asked me to write some sample Java code.
• I wrote a sample of code with a few classes and methods and used the concept of inheritance to extend the information of the parent class and objects to call the methods.
• then the interviewer wound up the round and asked me, “Do I have any questions for him?”

Two hours later, I got word through email that I had cleared the technical round and my managerial round was scheduled for that day itself.

Last Round: Managerial Round

The manager was a senior data engineer at PayPal.

• The interviewer introduces himself and then asks me to introduce myself.

I introduced myself, made him aware of my skills and projects, and told him that I was doing an internship at CODEclause as a web development intern, etc. (the same thing).

• Then the interviewer started asking questions.
• He asked me: “Which programming language do you prefer, and why?”
• He asked me what the biggest challenge I faced using that language was.

I tried to answer the question, but the interviewer was not satisfied with the answer, I guess.

• He asked me to explain the projects.
• The interviewer asked about backend projects.?
• He inquired, “How did I use or apply DSA in the project?” And what are all the DSA-based projects I did? I was confused, and I tried answering them.
• The interviewer asked me several questions on JSP and HTTP. I was unable to answer them.
• The interviewer asked me several questions about “data” and how I use it. How do you extract the requested information from the data?
• He asked me to give examples, and I gave him a few.

There was a good discussion of projects in the managerial round too.

Overall, the managerial round didn’t go well, and I learned through T&P that I didn’t clear the last round.

The Main Takeaways from my first interview with PayPal 

•  Be Aware of the basic concepts of DBMS, SQL, DSA, and OOPS
• One should know the real-life applications of every data structure.
• You should have at least one project related to
  • DSA
  • JAVA
  • FULL STACK(backend & frontend)
•  One should have an idea of how DSA is applied to their projects.
•  Think before you speak.

As interviewers, they will ask us questions based on what we say.

It was a wonderful experience, and I learned a lot from my first interview.

Thank you.