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eBay is a US-based multinational, multi-billion dollar e-commerce technology company that facilitates business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer product and service sales through its e-commerce website. eBay became a noteworthy success during the dot-com bubble and employs over 10,000 employees today.
eBay’s technical interview process is similar to that at FAANG+ companies and fundamentally seeks to evaluate your analytical problem-solving and design skills. In this article, we’ll look at eBay interview questions and some tips to help you nail eBay’s technical interview.
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Here’s what we’ll cover in this article:
- The Technical Interview Process at eBay
- eBay Interview Questions
- FAQs on eBay Tech Interviews
- Tips to Crack the eBay technical Interview
The Technical Interview Process at eBay
The eBay technical interview process is a litmus test of one’s programming and design skills. The interview consists of multiple interview rounds over three stages:
The Initial Screen
This is the first round in the process. Recruiters in this round will ask you basic questions to see if you’re the right fit for the role. You can expect questions pertaining to your skill, experience, exposure in the role you’re applying to, compensation - both current and expected, and why you’re looking to interview at eBay.
The recruiter will also share the job description and ask you to share an updated copy of your resume. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is updated and optimized with the right structure and keywords. If your skills meet the expectations of the role, you’ll be invited to the technical Phone Screen interview.
The Technical Phone Screen Interview
The Technical Phone Screen round is a remote interview conducted by a hiring manager who is driving the recruitment of software engineers. This round is mostly focused on coding and analytical problem-solving.
Your knowledge of fundamental concepts in Data Structures and Algorithms is evaluated through a coding problem that you’re asked to solve. The problem won’t be too difficult to solve - your general approach to problem-solving, how you account for time and space complexities, and your thought process in arriving at the optimal solution are key areas that are evaluated.
The Technical Phone Screen lasts 30-40 minutes. If everything goes well, you’ll be invited to the eBay On-site interview.
The On-site Interview
The real test of your abilities as a programmer is tested in the on-site interview. Depending on the position you’re applying to, the on-site can have 3-4 rounds. If you’re applying for a domain-specific role, the on-site will have an additional domain round conducted by domain experts at eBay.
The on-site consists of the following rounds:
- 1-2 coding rounds, where your knowledge of data structures and algorithms is tested through coding problems of medium-hard difficulty. How you Brute-force problem solutions, and your ability to write error-free code, will give you the points you need in this round.
- 1-2 design rounds, where your ability to build a scalable system by accounting for a bunch of components is evaluated. You could be asked questions specific to eBay’s platform, especially those around databases, network security, caching, API modeling, and sharding.
- 1 behavioral round, where the cultural-fit aspect is evaluated. You’ll be asked questions about your experience with companies, responses to workplace-related situations, and crucial learnings from past projects.
eBay Technical Interview Questions
Based on the rounds in the interview process, the interview questions asked at eBay’s interview typically fall under three main categories.
- eBay Coding Interview Questions
- eBay Systems Design Interview Questions
- eBay Behavioral Interview Questions
Let’s look at some interview questions from each of these categories.
eBay Coding Interview Questions
Acing coding interviews is crucial to making it past the on-site interview and landing an offer. Below is the list of topics to prepare for the eBay coding interview.
- Arrays, strings, and linked lists
- Sorting algorithms — quicksort, merge sort, heap sort, etc.
- Hash tables and queues
- Recursion
- Trees and graphs
- Graph algorithms, including greedy algorithms
- Dynamic programming
Here are some sample coding interview questions to practice for the eBay interview:
- For an array of integers and unique values, write a program code to decipher if the sum of any two integers in the array is equal to a given value.
- For a given two-dimensional array with integers of unique values, write a program to make the entire column or row of the array zero if any element in the array is zero.
- You are given two linked lists. Each of the linked lists has an integer value. Write a program to add the two linked lists and return the value of their sum.
- You’re given the root of a binary tree. Write a code to show the node values at every level.
- For a given binary search tree where two nodes of the tree are swapped, write a program to correct the binary search tree.
- For a given rotated array that is sorted, write a program code to find a particular element in the array.
- Write a program to check if a binary tree is a valid binary search tree.
- Write a program to find if the permutation of a string (given) is a palindrome or not.
- Write an error-free program to check if a given binary tree is balanced or not.
- You are provided with a string in the form of a sentence. Write a program to display the characters of the string in reverse order.
- For a given String S, write a program to find non-letter substrings that are palindromes.
- You’re given a list of stock prices with the value of buy and sell for each stock. Write a code to determine at what level of buy and sell maximum profit can be derived.
- For a given unsorted array with positive integers from 1 to n and one missing element. Write a program to find the missing element in the unsorted array.
- Write an error-free program to validate a given IP address.
- Write an error-free program to clone a given linked list “L” with the next arbitrary pointer.
For more practice problems and solutions, visit our Problems Page to access a vast list of coding problems.
eBay Systems Design Interview Questions
Systems Design is an extremely important part of the On-site interview. Below is the list of topics to prepare for the interview:
- Networking
- Scaling distributed applications
- Replication
- Sharding techniques
- Cache
- Distributed file systems
- Object modeling
- Database management Systems
- API modeling
Here are some sample systems design interview questions to expect at eBay’s technical interview.
- How would you design an IP blocking system?
- How would you design a file-sharing system like Dropbox?
- Design an API rate limiter?
- How would you ensure the security of a scalable distributed system?
- What are your thoughts on designing an e-commerce platform like eBay or Amazon?
- How would you go about designing a voting system where voters cast their votes, and the results are automatically tabulated?
- How would you integrate an end-to-end notification service on the eBay e-commerce platform?
- How would you go about designing an online food-delivery platform? What are the aspects you’ll have to account for?
- How would you go about designing a cab-hailing service?
eBay Behavioral Interview Questions
Behavioral questions are typically asked to understand your attitude and personality in general. You can also expect a few questions on learnings from past projects to give recruiters an idea of your past project experiences.
Behavioral questions are primarily centered around:
- Past experiences and learnings from past projects
- Your attitude and characteristics of your personality
- How you respond to workplace-related situations
Below are some sample behavioral interview questions asked at eBay’s technical interview:
- Tell us about the most challenging project you worked on
- Tell us about a time when you had to make a big decision for a crucial client project
- Tell us about a time when you disagreed with your superior
- Tell us about a conflict you had at your workplace
- What, according to you, are important aspects to maintain productivity at the workplace
- How would you avoid distractions at work?
- What lessons have you learned from the most challenging project you worked on?
- Tell us about a time when you had an uncooperative coworker and how you dealt with the situation?
- What are your thoughts on taking periodic vacations?
- Tell us about a time when a project suffered because of your superior’s inability to make tough decisions.
Check out these Behavioral Interview Questions for Software Engineers and Developers for more insights on behavioral interviews.
FAQs on eBay Tech Interviews
Q. What coding concepts are important for the eBay interview?
Coding problems asked at the eBay interview are based on concepts in algorithms and data structures. Arrays, strings, linked lists, sorting algorithms, hash tables, queues, recursion, trees, graph algorithms, and dynamic programming are some of the key coding topics for the interview.
Q. What systems design concepts are important for the eBay interview?
Systems design is a critical component of eBay’s On-site interview. Questions asked are based on topics like concurrency, data platforms, replication, sharding techniques, cache, distributed file systems, object modeling, database management systems, API modeling, and network protocols.
Tips to Crack the eBay Technical Interview
For comprehensive tips on acing technical interviews at the biggest companies, check out this complete guide on cracking coding interviews at top tech companies.
If you’ve started prepping for your upcoming technical interview, there’s no better way to prepare for it than enrolling for Interview Kickstart’s Technical Interview Masterclass. It’s an interview prep program that has helped thousands of engineers ace the most complex technical interviews for positions across the board.
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