PayPal Software Engineer interview experience

The discussion included high-level thinking paired with a deeper dive into internals—when I tried to frame it as mostly HLD, it kept turning into specifics around traffic management configurations.

The interviewer came across as a senior architect with very high expectations about how components worked under the hood. The conversation pushed me to reason about configuration and internal behavior rather than staying at a broad design level.

I didn’t receive an offer. My honest reflection was that I understood the general direction, but I wasn’t ready for how far into the internals they