PayPal interview process (2026)

Round-by-round breakdown of the PayPal software engineering interview across 4 levels and 17 rounds: interview mode, sample questions, and worked solutions.

PayPal salary & ratings · All interview processes

Software Engineer Intern (Summer / 6-month)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: 2-4 weeks · Recommended prep: 4-8 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Online Assessment (HackerRank)

    Assessment · ~60-90 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment · HackerRank

    Sample question: Zigzag Conversion — Given a string s and an integer numRows, write s in a zigzag pattern across numRows rows (going down then diagonally up, repeating), then read the pattern row by row to produce the output string. Input: line 1 = s, line 2 = numRows.

  2. Round 1: Technical Interview 1 (DSA + OOP)

    Phone · ~40-60 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

    Sample question: Spiral Matrix — Given an m x n integer matrix, return all elements in spiral order (start top-left, go right, then down, then left, then up, spiralling inward). Input: line 1 = m n, followed by m lines of n integers. Output: the elements space-separated.

  3. Round 2: Technical Interview 2 (deeper DSA / project)

    Onsite · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Group Transactions by Item — Given n transaction records each naming an item, count how many times each item appears, then output the items sorted by count descending, breaking ties alphabetically (ascending). Input: line 1 = n, then n lines each an item name. Output: one 'name count' per line.

  4. Round 3: HR / Managerial Round

    Behavioral · ~30-45 minutes · difficulty 1/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

Software Engineer 1 / 2 (campus & early-career, ~0-3 yrs; India OA-first pipeline)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: 2-4 weeks · Recommended prep: 4-8 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Online Assessment (HackerRank)

    Assessment · ~90-120 min · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment · HackerRank

    Sample question: Spiral Matrix — Given an m x n matrix, return all elements in clockwise spiral order starting from the top-left. Input: m n then the matrix; output the spiral sequence space-separated.

  2. Round 1: Technical Interview 1 - DSA / Live Coding

    Phone · 45-60 min · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live interview · CoderPad

    Sample question: Maximum Product Subarray — Given an integer array, find the contiguous subarray (containing at least one number) that has the largest product, and return that product. Input: n then n integers.

  3. Round 2: Technical Interview 2 - DSA + Project / Fundamentals

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Integer to Roman — Given an integer (1..3999), convert it to its Roman-numeral representation using the standard subtractive notation (IV, IX, XL, XC, CD, CM).

  4. Round 3: Hiring Manager / Managerial Round

    Behavioral · 30-45 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

MTS 1 / SDE-2 (experienced, ~3-6 yrs)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: 3-5 weeks · Recommended prep: 6-8 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter Screen / Online Assessment

    Phone · 30-45 min · difficulty 1/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Coding Round (DSA, live)

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Live interview · CoderPad

    Sample question: Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree — Given the root of a binary tree and two node values p and q, return the value of their lowest common ancestor. Input format: n; then n lines 'val left right' (-1 = null, first row is root); then 'p q'.

  3. Round 2: System Design Round

    System_design · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: Design a WhatsApp-like chat / messaging system — Design a real-time 1:1 and group messaging system (WhatsApp-style): connection management, message delivery/ordering, delivery/read receipts, offline queueing and fan-out, and end-to-end encryption. Discuss network protocol choice, storage schema, and scaling to millions of concurrent connections.

  4. Round 3: Hiring Manager / Deep-Dive + Behavioral

    Behavioral · 45 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

Senior MTS / SDE-3 (senior, ~6+ yrs)

Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: 4-8 weeks · Recommended prep: 8-10 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter / Hiring Manager Screen

    Phone · 30-45 min · difficulty 1/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Technical Deep-Dive (domain/internals)

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Merge k Sorted Lists — Merge k sorted linked lists into one sorted list. Input: k; then for each list a line 'len v1 v2 ... vlen'. Output the merged sorted sequence space-separated.

  3. Round 2: System Design (senior)

    System_design · 45-60 min · difficulty 4/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: Design a distributed API rate limiter — Design a full-fledged API rate limiter for a high-throughput payments API: choose an algorithm (token bucket / sliding window), decide per-user/per-API-key keying, make it work across a distributed fleet (shared counter store vs. local + sync), and handle bursts, clock skew, and failure modes.

  4. Round 3: DSA / Coding

    Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Reverse Nodes in k-Group — Given a singly linked list, reverse the nodes k at a time and return the modified list. Nodes remaining (< k) at the end stay as-is. Input: n; n node values; then k. Output the resulting list space-separated.

  5. Round 4: Hiring Manager / Behavioral (+ HR comp)

    Behavioral · 30-45 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

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Worked sample solutions (code, design diagrams, and STAR answers) for every round are available in the FAANGPlus app: open interview processes.