PayPal | Worst Experience | Backend Developer | | January 29 | Reject

I interviewed for a Backend Developer position at PayPal. The interview process was difficult and I did not have a positive experience. The first question involved reversing a string based on opening/closing curly brackets. I attempted to solve it using recursion, but the interviewer provided additional examples that showed it wouldn't work. I then tried using a stack, but I was unable to solve it within the time limit. The second question was a graph traversal problem involving counting the number of islands. This is a common question, and I knew the solution. I solved it within 20 minutes, but the interviewer refused to allow me to run the code, stating that time was up and they had to move on to the next candidate. The interviewer made several comments that were discouraging, including "I don't think you will be able to solve the next question" and "This solution won't work, don't bother to run. Time is up & I need to go to the next candidate now. Bye!" The interviewer did not provide any hints, which is fine, but the comment after the first question was particularly disheartening. We had approximately 20-25 minutes remaining, and the interviewer chose to end the interview instead of giving me the second question. They never attempted to run the solution for the second question and abruptly left the meeting. I provided feedback to HR about the experience and have decided not to apply to PayPal again. I would prefer to avoid working with individuals who exhibit this type of attitude.