ByteDance vs PayPal Interview Questions
ByteDance lists 64 LeetCode interview questions while PayPal lists 105. They share 25 problems — 39% of ByteDance's bank and 24% of PayPal's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 39 ByteDance-only and 80 PayPal-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 25 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both ByteDance and PayPal.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add ByteDance-specific problems like Remove Duplicate Letters, Smallest Subsequence of Distinct Characters, First Day Where You Have Been in All the Rooms and PayPal-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: PayPal skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
25 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both ByteDance and PayPal.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Course Schedule | Medium |
| Combination Sum | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Maximal Square | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Longest Increasing Subsequence | Medium |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Maximum Subarray | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Kth Largest Element in an Array | Medium |
| Climbing Stairs | Easy |
| Subarray Sum Equals K | Medium |
| Subsets | Medium |
| Longest Palindromic Substring | Medium |
| Find Peak Element | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Jump Game | Medium |
| Text Justification | Hard |
Unique to ByteDance (39)
Problems in ByteDance's list that do not appear at PayPal.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Remove Duplicate Letters | Medium |
| Smallest Subsequence of Distinct Characters | Medium |
| First Day Where You Have Been in All the Rooms | Medium |
| Basic Calculator II | Medium |
| Shortest Bridge | Medium |
| Regular Expression Matching | Hard |
| Design Memory Allocator | Medium |
| Word Ladder | Hard |
| Combination Sum II | Medium |
| Longest Common Subsequence | Medium |
| Add Two Numbers | Medium |
| Basic Calculator | Hard |
Unique to PayPal (80)
Problems in PayPal's list that do not appear at ByteDance.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do ByteDance and PayPal share?
ByteDance and PayPal share 25 LeetCode interview questions. 39 problems appear only in ByteDance's list and 80 appear only in PayPal's list.
What topics overlap most between ByteDance and PayPal?
The most common shared topics between ByteDance and PayPal are Array (19 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (9 shared questions), Hash Table (5 shared questions), String (4 shared questions), Breadth-First Search (3 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: ByteDance or PayPal?
ByteDance has 4 Easy, 51 Medium, and 9 Hard questions. PayPal has 19 Easy, 69 Medium, and 17 Hard questions. PayPal has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both ByteDance and PayPal?
Start with the 25 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 ByteDance-specific and 20 PayPal-specific questions to round out your prep.