Paypal Software Engineer Phone Screen Questions
33+ questions from real Paypal Software Engineer Phone Screen rounds, reported by candidates who interviewed there.
What does the Paypal Phone Screen round test?
The Paypal phone screen typically lasts 45-60 minutes and evaluates core Software Engineer fundamentals. Candidates should expect 1-2 algorithmic problems, basic system design discussion at senior levels, and questions about relevant experience. The goal is to confirm technical competence before bringing candidates onsite.
Top Topics in This Round
Paypal Software Engineer Phone Screen Questions
Paypal Technical Phone Screen Interview Experience and API Design Challenge
I had an online assessment (OA) on Karat last week. Do an API design question in the first 15 minutes or so: We are designing the public HTTP API for a web service that helps corporate social media ma
Paypal SDE Interview
Background- 3+ YoE Round 1: technical Interview (in Golang)- Resume based questions were asked, based on the tech stack I had used and explanation of the tech stack I use in my...
Each round happens on a knock-out basis.Round 1 : (Hackerearth based test) [Time : 1h15m]This round had 2 questions.Given an array of size N and K queries, find the number...
Paypal visited our campus in the mid of August.Students of only CS and IT were asked to attend.First Round-(Online Round):This round contained two sections.First section h...
PayPal Interview Experience | On-Campus
Round 1(Coding Round): This round basically had 2 coding questions. One is a dynamic programming based question and the second question is an implementation based question...
PayPal - Senior Software Developer
Current Status : YOE : 5+ Role : Senior Backend Developer Round 1 : On Hacerrank (DSA + Problem Solving) 1. Given an api Url, get the response and return data for a...
Paypal Technical Interview | Round 1
Can someone help me with the below question: there are two linked lists, I need sum of the given linked lists in single traversal without extra space. and return result linkedlist. Example: head1 ->...
Lead Full Stack Developer
Round 1 JavaScript basics, implement deepClone, difference between call, apply, bind etc Round 2 DSA - Longest Increasing Subsequence (https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-increasing-subsequence/) Stack with getMin (https://leetcode.com/problems/min-stack/) **Round 3** System Design Questions regarding current project, design a system to take a...
Tesco | SDE2 | Banglore | Feb 2023
Current Position : - Status: 4.5 years - Position: SE2 at PayPal - Location: Chennai - Date: January 25, 2023 Round 1 : - Project Discussion ( Architecture ) , Role and Responsibility Tesco...
PayPal | Staff Engineer | Seattle/Remote | Oct 2023 [Reject]
Status: 6 year Working Experience Position: Staff Software Engineer at PayPal Checkout team Location: Seattle/Remote Date: August - October 24, 2023 Round 1: Online Coding Assessment (1 hour) \t- Basic String manipulation questions. \t-...
Paypal | SDE 2 | Bangalore | 16-Feb-2022 (Offer)
SDE 2 , YOE :4.3 Round 1 (QA) \t2 problems 1 medium 1 hard Round 2 (Technical Interview) \t1. Sorting based on frequenct for a string or array \t2. Coin change problem \t\t\t https://leetcode.com/problems/coin-change/ **Round...
Paypal | SDE 2 | Bangalore | May 2022 [Accepted]
Interview Experience: I got call from recruiter for SDE 2 role @Paypal. The process took around 2 weeks to be completed and i received the offer letter after being accepted. There were...
Nutanix | MTS4 | Bangalore | July 2022
Recently I interviewed in Nutanix for a MTS4 role via referal. There were a total of 3 technical round and 1 HM round. Round 1:- 2 coding question leetcode medium-hard (Tree &...
Paypal | SE 3(T24) | Bangalore
I was approached by HR and as I was in notice period they fast tracked my interview process. Round 1 :- Find an element in infinite sorted array stream, Divide without...
Paypal | MTS 1 | Hyderabad | Jul 2022 | Offer
Status & Position: 7.8 YoE, SDE 2 @Product based company Round 1: Hiring Manager Round - Question from my projects - How would you evaluate between two solutions/tools. Round 2: Problem Solving/DSA...
AJIO | SDE-1 | Virtual | FEB-2022 | Selected
Status: 2020 Grad , Normal Private College (Tier 3/4) Company at that time : Infosys (Specialist Programmer) Position they offer: SDE1 Location: Banglore , INDIA Date: Feb 2022 Applied Thorugh : Referral This is for...
Phone Screen | Paypal | SDE 2
Phone Screen Video Interview 60 min : 1. Questions about resume and current project 2. API Gateway Related Questions 3. Longest Substring without repeating charectors. Interviewer wanted an answer in...
Paypal | SWE 1 | New grad | Offer
The entire process consisted of 4 rounds comprising of a online assesment , 2 tech interviews and one technical + managerial round. Online Assesment Online Assesment consisted of two questions.The cutoff for...
PayPal | SDE | Entry Level | CA
In my technical phone interview round I was asked this question : https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-palindromic-substring/
PayPal | SDE-2 | Interview R1
Time: 1hr Working code required, needed to run on an online IDE. Q1. https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-palindromic-substring/ Expected T.C: O(n^2) and O(1) S.C. Q2. https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-sorted-array/
What to Expect in the Paypal Phone Screen Round
The Paypal Software Engineer Phone Screen round has a specific calibration purpose distinct from other rounds in the loop. Across 33+ verified reports on LeakCode for this exact round type, the consistent expectations: clear scoping of the problem before diving into a solution, explicit reasoning about complexity, structured handling of edge cases, and the ability to discuss trade-offs between two reasonable approaches.
Reports tagged with the Phone Screen round at Paypal show recurring patterns in difficulty and topic distribution. The Phone Screen round is typically 45-60 minutes; the interviewer is calibrated against a specific rubric. The discriminator between candidates who advance and candidates who do not is rarely the final correctness of the answer. It is the path: did you clarify, did you verbalize your approach, did you handle edge cases, and did you communicate throughout.
How To Prepare for This Specific Round
Filter the questions below to the most recent reports (past 6-12 months). Questions tagged for this exact round type from this exact company at this exact role level are the highest-signal data available. Older reports may reference questions that have since rotated out of the company's pool.
Practice 4-6 representative problems from this set under timed conditions. The goal is not memorization (companies rotate questions); the goal is to internalize the patterns the interviewer typically reaches for and the depth of follow-up to expect. Reports on LeakCode also tag the typical follow-up depth at this round type, which is the discriminating signal between hire and no-hire calibration.
Phone Screen Round Timing and Format
The Phone Screen round at Paypal typically runs 45-60 minutes. Use the first 2-3 minutes to clarify requirements; you should never start coding or designing without verifying the input/output format, constraints, and edge cases out loud. Use the next 5-7 minutes to verbalize your approach before writing any code. The middle 20-30 minutes are implementation. Reserve the final 10 minutes for testing with concrete examples and discussing optimization or trade-offs.
Time budget discipline is one of the most reliable senior-vs-junior discriminators in this round. Strong candidates verbalize where they are in their budget out loud ("I've used about 20 minutes, I have 15 minutes left for testing and one optimization"). This signals engineering maturity to the interviewer and creates positive feedback they can capture in writing.
Common Failure Modes in This Round
Reports tagged "no hire" at Paypal Software Engineer Phone Screen commonly cite: coding silently without verbalizing approach, jumping to implementation before clarifying requirements, missing edge cases (empty input, single element, very large input), producing working code that the candidate cannot refactor when asked, and failing to test their solution with concrete examples before declaring done.
The single most predictive failure mode in 2025-2026 reports: not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers at all FAANG companies are explicitly trained to weight this dimension. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's notes.
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