3yrs Experience

I recently went through the interview process for a Senior Software Engineer (Python) role at PayPal, and I’d love to share my journey 👇

📧 Application

I started by directly emailing my resume to a recruiter. Shortly after, I received a HackerRank test link containing two coding questions:
1️⃣ A Dynamic Programming problem
2️⃣ A Segment Tree / Binary Search-based GCD problem

I was able to solve both successfully ✅
A few days later, I got the confirmation for the next rounds of interviews.

🧠 Round 1: System Design (High-Level Design)

Question: Design a system that provides real-time updates on price changes of Amazon items.
I proposed a job-based approach, and to scale it further, I introduced the concept of hot and cold events to efficiently handle updates.
Self verdict: Strong Hire 💪

💻 Round 2: DSA / Problem Solving

This round had two LeetCode Medium-level problems.
I used C++ for implementation and solved both within time.
Self verdict: Strong Hire 💪

⚙️ Round 3: Role Specialization (LLD / Coding)

I was given a Booking System-style LLD question where function signatures were already defined, and I had to implement their logic.
All test cases passed successfully.
Self verdict: Strong Hire 💪

🎯 Round 4: Bar Raiser (Behavioral)

We discussed behavioral and situational questions for around 40 minutes.
Thanks to my Amazon SDE-2 loop prep, I was well-prepared on Leadership Principles, which helped me a lot in this round.
Self verdict: Hire ✅

I’m currently in the interview loop with Amazon(Bar Raiser Round Pending), BrowserStack (2 Rounds Pending), and Swiggy(2 Rounds Pending) — will share those experiences soon! 🚀

📚 Resources I Used

DSA: Striver’s Sheet + random LeetCode problems (topic-agnostic solving)

LLD: GitHub repositories

HLD: HelloInterview

Behavioral: Amazon Leadership Principles