PayPal DSA Interview Questions

What PayPal asks in the DSA round

PayPal covers standard medium DSA, Java/Spring fundamentals and system design for backend roles, with a strong emphasis on transactional correctness.

Across the 132 questions on this page, the weight sits on these patterns:

• Dynamic Programming — 25 questions · read the dynamic programming guide
• Greedy — 11 questions · read the greedy guide
• Binary Search — 9 questions · read the modified binary search guide
• Two Pointers — 9 questions · read the two pointers guide
• Breadth-First Search — 7 questions · read the breadth first search (bfs) guide
• Hash Table — 6 questions
• Backtracking — 5 questions · read the backtracking guide
• Design — 5 questions · read the design data structure guide

How to prepare for the PayPal interview

1. 1. Start at the top of the list above. The patterns are ordered by how often PayPal uses them, so the first two or three buy you the most coverage per hour.
2. 2. Solve by pattern, not at random. Doing eight dynamic programming problems in a row is what makes the ninth recognisable in an interview — jumping between topics does not.
3. 3. Tick problems off as you go so the gaps are visible. The per-pattern counts tell you which PayPal topic you have actually covered.
4. 4. Write the approach before the code. PayPal interviews are judged on the reasoning as much as the working solution.
5. 5. Pair this with the pattern guides when a topic is new, and the system design sheet if the role is senior enough to have that round.
6. 6. If this is a campus or off-campus drive rather than a lateral move, the placement preparation guide covers the stages around the DSA round — aptitude, core subjects and the HR interview — in the order they actually happen.

PayPal interview questions — FAQ

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