My PayPal Software Engineer - 1 Interview Experience

I recently went through the interview process for a Software Engineer - 1 role at PayPal in Chennai, which consisted of four rounds. I'm pleased to share that I received an offer.

Round 1: Hackerearth Based Test (1h 15m)

This was an online coding test with two questions. The first question was based on segment trees and range queries, which I found to be a LeetCode Medium level problem. I struggled to recall the exact working of segment trees under pressure, so I ended up providing a brute-force solution, which yielded about a 50% score. The second question involved concepts of graphs, specifically related to the number of islands, combined with dynamic programming. This was a LeetCode Hard level problem, which I managed to solve completely. I cleared this round.

Round 2: Face-to-Face Problem Solving (45 mins)

This round began with a general introduction and some questions about my internship project. Following that, we moved to problem-solving. I was given two coding questions:

1. A simple binary tree problem asking for the maximum root-to-leaf path sum. (LeetCode Easy)
2. A modification of the first question, where I had to find the maximum path sum between any two nodes in a binary tree. (LeetCode Hard)

I successfully cleared this round as well.

Round 3: Face-to-Face Technical Discussion (1h)

This round was primarily focused on my resume. We had an in-depth discussion about all my projects, the technologies I utilized, my rationale for choosing those specific technologies over alternatives, difficulties I faced, and the type of work I do in my current company. There was also some discussion on hash maps and various caching techniques. Finally, we touched upon database concepts like indexing, joins, and a comparison between SQL and NoSQL databases. I managed to clear this round.

Round 4: Face-to-Face Hiring Manager (30 mins)

The final round was with the hiring manager and aimed at assessing my cultural fit. We discussed my current work and past internships. There was also a theoretical discussion on recursion and memoization. I successfully cleared this round.

I received a verbal confirmation for the offer about a week after my final round, and the official offer letter arrived approximately a month later.