PayPal vs Snowflake Interview Questions
PayPal lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Snowflake lists 100. They share 16 problems — 15% of PayPal's bank and 16% of Snowflake's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 89 PayPal-only and 84 Snowflake-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 16 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both PayPal and Snowflake.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add PayPal-specific problems like Zigzag Conversion, Minimum Absolute Difference, Longest Increasing Subsequence and Snowflake-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: Snowflake skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
16 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both PayPal and Snowflake.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Word Search | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Find Median from Data Stream | Hard |
| Maximum Number of Events That Can Be Attended | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Random Pick with Weight | Medium |
| Count Vowel Substrings of a String | Easy |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Happy Number | Easy |
| Course Schedule | Medium |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Non-overlapping Intervals | Medium |
Unique to PayPal (89)
Problems in PayPal's list that do not appear at Snowflake.
Unique to Snowflake (84)
Problems in Snowflake's list that do not appear at PayPal.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do PayPal and Snowflake share?
PayPal and Snowflake share 16 LeetCode interview questions. 89 problems appear only in PayPal's list and 84 appear only in Snowflake's list.
What topics overlap most between PayPal and Snowflake?
The most common shared topics between PayPal and Snowflake are Array (11 shared questions), Hash Table (5 shared questions), Two Pointers (4 shared questions), Sorting (4 shared questions), Depth-First Search (3 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: PayPal or Snowflake?
PayPal has 19 Easy, 69 Medium, and 17 Hard questions. Snowflake has 13 Easy, 67 Medium, and 20 Hard questions. Snowflake has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both PayPal and Snowflake?
Start with the 16 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 PayPal-specific and 20 Snowflake-specific questions to round out your prep.