PayPal Software Engineer interview experience

There was essentially a single round that felt more like a practical work session than a traditional question-and-answer interview.

Instead of being quizzed on classic topics, I had to share my screen and write code in real time as part of an assessment. It was the kind of setup that put immediate weight on execution—thinking on my feet, driving the implementation live, and communicating what I was doing while I coded.

I didn’t get an offer, and while the format was straightforward and direct, I missed the mark on whatever the evaluators were looking for in that live coding moment.