PayPal vs Yandex Interview Questions
PayPal lists 105 LeetCode interview questions while Yandex lists 128. They share 29 problems — 28% of PayPal's bank and 23% of Yandex's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 76 PayPal-only and 99 Yandex-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 29 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both PayPal and Yandex.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add PayPal-specific problems like Zigzag Conversion, Minimum Absolute Difference, Count Vowel Strings in Ranges and Yandex-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
29 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both PayPal and Yandex.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Longest Increasing Subsequence | Medium |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Meeting Scheduler | Medium |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Product of Array Except Self | Medium |
| Coin Change | Medium |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Group Anagrams | Medium |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Find Median from Data Stream | Hard |
| Maximum Subarray | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Subarray Sum Equals K | Medium |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Text Justification | Hard |
| Median of Two Sorted Arrays | Hard |
| Binary Tree Maximum Path Sum | Hard |
| Move Zeroes | Easy |
| Valid Anagram | Easy |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Swap Nodes in Pairs | Medium |
| Longest Palindromic Substring | Medium |
| First Unique Character in a String | Easy |
Unique to PayPal (76)
Problems in PayPal's list that do not appear at Yandex.
Unique to Yandex (99)
Problems in Yandex's list that do not appear at PayPal.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Longest Subarray of 1's After Deleting One Element | Medium |
| Summary Ranges | Easy |
| Maximize Distance to Closest Person | Medium |
| Find K Closest Elements | Medium |
| String Compression | Medium |
| Valid Palindrome II | Easy |
| One Edit Distance | Medium |
| Permutation in String | Medium |
| Isomorphic Strings | Easy |
| Line Reflection | Medium |
| Longest Strictly Increasing or Strictly Decreasing Subarray | Easy |
| Valid Palindrome | Easy |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do PayPal and Yandex share?
PayPal and Yandex share 29 LeetCode interview questions. 76 problems appear only in PayPal's list and 99 appear only in Yandex's list.
What topics overlap most between PayPal and Yandex?
The most common shared topics between PayPal and Yandex are Array (20 shared questions), Hash Table (8 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (7 shared questions), String (7 shared questions), Two Pointers (6 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: PayPal or Yandex?
PayPal has 19 Easy, 69 Medium, and 17 Hard questions. Yandex has 51 Easy, 67 Medium, and 10 Hard questions. PayPal has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both PayPal and Yandex?
Start with the 29 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 PayPal-specific and 20 Yandex-specific questions to round out your prep.