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.