PayPal Senior Software Engineer (Python) Interview Experience

I recently went through the interview process for a Senior Software Engineer (Python) role at PayPal, and I'd love to share my journey.

My process started by directly emailing my resume to a recruiter. Shortly after, I received a HackerRank test link containing two coding questions, which I successfully solved. A few days later, I received confirmation for the next rounds of interviews.

🧠 Round 1: System Design (High-Level Design)

I was asked to design a system that provides real-time updates on price changes of Amazon items. I proposed a job-based approach, and to scale it further, I introduced the concept of hot and cold events to efficiently handle updates. I felt I performed strongly.

💻 Round 2: DSA / Problem Solving

This round presented two LeetCode Medium-level problems. I used C++ for implementation and solved both within the allotted time. I believed I performed strongly in this round as well.

⚙️ Round 3: Role Specialization (LLD / Coding)

I was given a Booking System-style Low-Level Design (LLD) question where function signatures were already defined, and my task was to implement their logic. All test cases passed successfully, which made me feel confident about my performance.

🎯 Round 4: Bar Raiser (Behavioral)

This round focused on behavioral and situational questions for around 40 minutes. My preparation for Amazon's SDE-2 loop, especially on Leadership Principles, proved to be very helpful, and I felt I cleared this round successfully.