I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at PayPal (Detroit, MI) in Mar 2022
Interview
First contact with a recruiter after applying for one of their roles on LinkedIn. She was incredibly helpful and transparent about the whole process, and did the most she could to help me prep.
First phone screen was with a hiring manager where we had a pretty in-depth conversation about the role, the team I'd be on, and my past relevant experience. He was very laid back and this portion felt a lot like a conversation between 2 engineers, rather than an interrogation like a lot of big-tech interviews.
Next phase, a virtual onsite, which is essentially 4 one-hour long interviews with 4 different engineers. The first two interviews were coding interviews (leetcode medium), a system design question, and a behavioral/relevant experience round. Offer was made the next week.
I will say, I'm normally very nervous during coding interviews. I mean, I can code, but doing it in front of someone who determines your career prospects in a given time limit is gut-wrenching. The PayPal engineers I coded with were incredibly accommodating and made me feel very comfortable for the whole thing by collaborating with me to solve the problem rather than sitting there in disappointed silence. The behavioral round was a two-way conversation gave me a solid idea of what working at PayPal is like. By far the smoothest big-tech panel interview that I've experienced.
TIPS:
-Don't worry to much about getting the optimal solution in code, but be sure to communicate what you think a more efficient solution may be.
-Doing well in all portions is more important than being Turing during the coding rounds and bombing system design and behavioral.
-If there's a breathe of silence, you're doing it wrong. Communicate your thought process; if you're thinking, then you should be talking.
-Definitely research the tech stack and read the job description, prepare to go into detail about how your past experience is relevant ( even if its not ;) )
-FYI: I practiced the problems other interviewee's posted here, and every coding problem I got was here on this page.
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at PayPal (San Jose, CA) in Jan 2022
Interview
I cold applied to a job posting, however, my resume was targeted to the job posting. This allowed me to get a follow-up. The interview process went like this:
1 recruiter screen
1 combined technical/behavioral screen
4 tech screens, 1 HM screen (behavioral)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design ticketmaster, you decide the focus/direction
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at PayPal (Lutherville Timonium, MD) in Dec 2020
Interview
This was the most awful interview experience I have ever had. Interviewer were extremely disrespectful to me. It was really obvious to me that it intentional. All 3 interviewer were indians and I am an indian as well. So, they actually thought they can behave in whatever manner they want .I gave this interview in December 2020 and no one ever asked me for feedback.
I am obligated to give name of my interviewer because they were so bad. Edited(Glassdoor does not allow to use peoples name)
Interview was a 2 hour panel interview. Some questions on resume, coding problem and last were questions on problem.
All 3 were extremely disrespectful. One of the staff engineer was shouting the entire time in interview. I felt like I suspected of some crime and bought into custody for questioning.
Coding question was wrongly presented to me. When asked for clarification question, they said yes time can start at higher number and end at lower number. This means the problem is different.
When they saw problem statement is wrong, they flipped and said - numbers are not time they are just numbers. Function needs return if given range fits in the problems.
They were unable to follow anything I was talking through. Had no interest and were unable to understand the approach I explained. Once I had the code ready they just wanted me to run the code against provided input (Yes code share was a compiler not a plain text editor).
They obviously did not have ability to tell whether code will work or not without actually running it.
Some of the design questions Niraj Giri asked were actually the project he was working on. When I raised objection he started shouting and started insulting and belittle me.
Please do not even plan to interview in this place. This is a really Toxic place.
If you are giving interview my recommendation is plan to record it. Avoid signing NDA. If you have similar experience please make recording public. I would have definitely done it I knew I am going to have such bad experience.
I would also recommend to not allow them to use a tool where you can compile code. Asked them to use a plain text editor have them determine if code can run or not.
Couple weeks after giving this interview I gave interview with Google and Rivian and cleared with flying colors. I joined Rivian as Sr. Software Engineer. You can tell by the way tech interview is conducted, what type of person other person is. I am really happy with my decision to join Rivian.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given the array of times, return if input time is available for a meeting.