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Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Jose, California

January 1, 2013
Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

Interviewed with PayPal after graduating from college in December 2013. The process took about a month.

It consisted of two phone interviews, followed by a final on-site interview which comprised five hour-long, face-to-face rounds.

Questions

There were no difficult algorithmic questions. If you know your basics on algorithms and data structures, you should be fine (I was asked a tree question and an array pattern search question).

I interviewed for a position in mobile SDK development, so the interviews focused mainly on architecture and design. Practice your object-oriented design and think about how to design things securely and to scale (client/server side caching, security, etc.). These questions can be particularly tricky for someone coming right out of college.

Also, PayPal values a good culture fit, so be enthusiastic, sociable, and confident.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 42 interview experiences for the PayPal Software Engineer role in San Jose, California.

Success Rate

36%
Pass Rate

PayPal's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in San Jose, California is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive57%
Neutral21%
Negative21%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for PayPal's Software Engineer interview process in San Jose, California.

PayPal Work Experiences