PayPal vs Yahoo Interview Questions
PayPal lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Yahoo lists 34. They share 12 problems — 11% of PayPal's bank and 35% of Yahoo's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 93 PayPal-only and 22 Yahoo-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 12 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both PayPal and Yahoo.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add PayPal-specific problems like Zigzag Conversion, Minimum Absolute Difference, Longest Increasing Subsequence and Yahoo-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
12 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both PayPal and Yahoo.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Word Search | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Subarray Sum Equals K | Medium |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
| Find Peak Element | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Median of Two Sorted Arrays | Hard |
| Serialize and Deserialize Binary Tree | Hard |
| Combination Sum | Medium |
Unique to PayPal (93)
Problems in PayPal's list that do not appear at Yahoo.
Unique to Yahoo (22)
Problems in Yahoo's list that do not appear at PayPal.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Maximum Depth of Binary Tree | Easy |
| Reverse Linked List | Easy |
| Contains Duplicate | Easy |
| Largest Palindrome Product | Hard |
| Roman to Integer | Easy |
| Word Break | Medium |
| Linked List Cycle | Easy |
| Matrix Cells in Distance Order | Easy |
| Non-decreasing Subsequences | Medium |
| Maximum Distance in Arrays | Medium |
| Binary Number with Alternating Bits | Easy |
| Peeking Iterator | Medium |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do PayPal and Yahoo share?
PayPal and Yahoo share 12 LeetCode interview questions. 93 problems appear only in PayPal's list and 22 appear only in Yahoo's list.
What topics overlap most between PayPal and Yahoo?
The most common shared topics between PayPal and Yahoo are Array (9 shared questions), Hash Table (4 shared questions), String (3 shared questions), Binary Search (3 shared questions), Design (2 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: PayPal or Yahoo?
PayPal has 19 Easy, 69 Medium, and 17 Hard questions. Yahoo has 11 Easy, 20 Medium, and 3 Hard questions. PayPal has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both PayPal and Yahoo?
Start with the 12 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 PayPal-specific and 20 Yahoo-specific questions to round out your prep.