I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at PayPal in Feb 2020
Interview
I applied online. Received an email from recruiter after a month asking me to schedule an interview. The interview was the strangest I have ever experienced. I was asked questions about Machine Learning, Web scraping, Natural Language Processing, etc. that are in no way related to my background or even a Software Engineer position in general. After the interview, I wasn't notified the offer was declined until 45 days later.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is naive bayes classification? Give an example where you would use naive bayes?
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at PayPal
Interview
A call with manager followed by 2 45 min interviews. One was a typical leetcode question and the other was a system design question. The system design for me was pretty difficult since I am not used to it but the leetcode interview was easy, The system design interview varies for some. Some people got a simple OOP system design question but I got a real system design question where I had to design a feature.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you had to scale your personal project, how would you do it?
I applied online. I interviewed at PayPal (San Jose, CA) in Apr 2026
Interview
OA -> 15min recruiter screen -> 2x 45 min tech rounds (one LC/algorithmic/DSA, one system design/behavioral engineering manager). Super chill, didn't expect to hear back in less than a week. First tech was on Hackerrank with an engineer, try to get 15/15 test cases passed and communicate your thought process. Second tech was a resume grill (really know those bullet points) and a simple verbal system design.