Interviewed for a position in India. Rejected due to HR ego.

• 5 years of experience - 2 product-based companies (not FAANG)
• Tier 3 university
• Laid off a few months ago

Recruiter contacted me, asking if I was interested and wanted to proceed. They requested my current compensation, which I declined to reveal, stating I was open to reasonable offers. The interview proceeded.

Round 1

Online coding assessment. Two questions: one coding implementation and one competitive programming problem. 90 minutes.

• Payment Wallet: Implement classes to add balance, check if a transaction is possible, and deduct balance. Implementations are required in Java only.
• Minimize Cost: Given an array of costs, you can perform 'm' steps. In each step, you can choose any cost and reduce it by half. The goal is to minimize the total cost (sum of the array). Return the total cost. Any language is acceptable.

Round 2

• Substring with Character Count: Given a string s, a character c, and an integer count, find the continuous substring in s with the lowest length that contains exactly count occurrences of c.
  • Example: s - 'abrtbopkbxb', c - 'b', count - 2. Answer: 3 (substring 'bxb').
• Random Shuffle: Given a list of strings, randomly shuffle the list. Multiple calls to the function should produce random shuffles with an extremely low probability of the same shuffle.

Round 3

• Immutability: Design a class that takes name and date of birth (dob). Provide simple getters and ensure the class is immutable, meaning name and dob cannot be modified after the object has been created.
• Publisher-Subscriber Model: Explain the concept of a pub/sub (Publisher Subscriber model). Design code and classes as if providing a library. Clients should be able to publish and subscribe to content.
• Booking System Design: Imagine building a booking website like BookMyShow. What problems would you face when booking seats? Would you need to implement locks? Which type of lock? At what level – the database or in code? Would this slow down reads? Which approach is more efficient? Booking websites like BookMyShow wouldn't operate on a single machine; they would be distributed across multiple machines. Traditional locks wouldn't work. How would you solve this? Each machine needs to know the current status of seats (booked/unbooked) and be able to book them.

Drama:

I received a call informing me that I had cleared Round 3 and an email invite for Round 4 with the Hiring Manager. Within an hour of receiving the invite, I received two missed calls from two different numbers. Subsequently, I received an SMS stating: "[Mr/Mrs x] here from Paypal HR, call me back NOW as it's imp". I called back the first number, but no one answered (this was the recruiter I had been in contact with). I then called back the second number, and the call was answered.

HR: Hi, I handle recruitments for this particular team. I want to know your previous compensation.

Me: Oh, I still have an interview round left. Can we discuss it once it's cleared?

HR: No. Your previous rounds went well, and this round with the manager is just for him to get to know you. Please tell me your previous compensation.

Me: Oh, I told the recruiter at the beginning that my current salary was confidential and I wouldn't be able to reveal it.

HR: (angrily) What do you mean by confidential? You are talking to an HR person here!!

Me: By confidential, I mean I cannot reveal it.

HR: Why can't you reveal it??

Me: Because it's confidential.

HR: (starts shouting) We need to know for internal purposes. We do not onboard anyone who doesn't reveal their salary.

Me: Oh, okay. I understand. I am willing to provide all my details after I receive an offer and we reach an agreement.

HR: No, I need to know now!!

Me: But I had stated this at the beginning to the recruiter. Why do you need to know?

HR: I need to know to give you an offer according to that.

Me: Why? This role has a salary range. Salary should be based on my skills, experience, and the work I am expected to do. What does my previous salary have to do with it?

HR: (still shouting) Will you shut up for 1 second? LET ME SPEAK! You've been blabbering on for so long!

Me: Yes, please go ahead.

HR: (still shouting) THIS IS NOT HOW IT WILL HAPPEN! THIS IS HOW IT'S GOING TO BE! I NEED TO KNOW YOUR SALARY!

Me: Why are you shouting? I am not your servant!

HR: (still shouting, continues speaking)

Me: Don't shout at me!

HR: You know WHAAAAT!!!

Me: I know what you're going to say.

HR: I am going to go ahead and cancel the meeting. This "unprofessional" behavior is not acceptable.

Me: (Lost it at this point) You go ahead and do that! Go ahead and do that!

HR: [Cuts call]

According to Paypal, I am supposed to tolerate their constant shouting by HR, shut up, and answer all questions. If I dare to speak against it, then all is lost. They can shout, ask for my current salary, be rude, and whatnot. And when I say something, it's considered "unprofessional" behavior that is unacceptable. This clearly shows how one would be treated once hired.