The interview process is very standard. It consists of one phone screen, and if it goes well, they bring you in for an on-site interview. The on-site portion comprises 5 rounds, including lunch with the hiring manager.

Phone Screen

I scheduled my phone interview thrice. Unfortunately, nobody called me for the first two times (one engineer forgot to call, and another manager was in a meeting). They kept rescheduling the phone interview, which made for a very unprofessional experience with PayPal.

On-site Interview

Since I was applying for an Android role, my first round was 2 hours long. I was asked to develop an Android app from scratch based on requirements provided in a PDF. An interviewer was present in the room but would not answer any questions I had.

One of the rounds was with an engineer who seemed completely disinterested in the interview process. He asked questions in a monotone, without any expression, and constantly looked at his laptop screen.

During a third round with another engineer, I was solving problems on the whiteboard and explaining my solutions. He was constantly staring at his phone and repeatedly asked me to explain again the solution I had just explained. I was quite taken aback.

I did not have a good experience meeting the PayPal engineers. This was the first time in an interview where none of the interviewers seemed interested in learning about my mobile experience or what I do. None of the interviewers shared what they do at PayPal, and nobody asked me if I had any questions.

I wish the interviewers had been more motivated and excited about PayPal, and more polite. I left the on-site interview knowing nothing about PayPal's engineering challenges.