eBay interview questions

Showing 1–30 of 41 results

• Answer senior behavioral questionsHard

  This question evaluates a senior engineer's leadership, influence, communication of impact, and ability to articulate complex technical challenges, and it sits in the Behavioral & Leadership category for software engineering roles.

  eBaySoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Assign Ads to Browser PositionsMedium

  This question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving around randomized selection, constraint-based resource allocation, and per-user state management, including enforcing eligibility rules and incrementing display counts.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Behavioral: beyond-scope ownership, manager conflict, and a skip-level deadline at riskEasy

  A behavioral question set on taking on work beyond your scope, handling a disagreement with your manager when discussion fails, and responding when a task from your skip-level manager will miss its deadline. It tests ownership, managing up, escalation judgment and communicating risk early.

  eBayApplied ScientistBehavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen
• Behavioral: choosing a large cross-time-zone company, role fit, and on-call motivationEasy

  A behavioral question set for a machine learning role on why you want a large company with cross-time-zone teams rather than a small one, why this position, and how you stay motivated when the role carries heavy on-call duty. It tests genuine motivation, self-awareness and ownership of production systems.

  eBayApplied ScientistBehavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen
• Compute the Wait for a Warmer DayMedium

  This problem tests your ability to efficiently find the distance to the next greater element in an array, typically requiring an O(n) approach using a monotonic stack.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Count Connected Land RegionsMedium

  This question evaluates understanding of graph connectivity and grid traversal, specifically the detection of connected components within a 2D matrix. It is commonly asked to assess algorithmic problem-solving, efficiency and handling of matrix-based data structures; it belongs to the Coding & Algorithms domain and tests practical implementation skills alongside conceptual understanding of graph-related complexity under the given input constraints.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Describe Your Most Technically Difficult ProjectMedium

  This question assesses the candidate's ability to communicate complex engineering challenges, technical decision-making, and the impact of their contributions in a structured manner.

  eBaySoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen
• Design a Customer Payment Dispute PlatformMedium

  Design a resilient payment dispute resolution platform that handles dispute lifecycles, evidence management, deadline enforcement, external payment provider integration, and financial ledger auditability.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design a Rotating Workplace Food-Ordering ServiceMedium

  Tests the ability to design an enterprise food-ordering platform featuring scheduled vendor rotations, optimistic concurrency control for live inventory, and reliable checkout with corporate subsidy splitting.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Shopping Search Bar with AutocompleteMedium

  Tests candidate's ability to design a dual-path search system that separates low-latency typeahead suggestions from heavy, filtered e-commerce catalog search at scale.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Streaming Top-Ten Sales DashboardMedium

  This question tests the ability to design a distributed, low-latency streaming pipeline that aggregates high-velocity sales data into a real-time leaderboard.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Top-K trending serviceMedium

  This problem evaluates your ability to design a distributed system that aggregates high-velocity event streams to identify the most frequent items within a sliding time window.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design an Ad Assignment APIMedium

  This question evaluates a candidate's skill in designing stateful, production-grade HTTP APIs and reasoning about distributed-systems concerns such as idempotency, concurrency control, per-user state management, and observability.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignTechnical Screen
• Design an online marketplace for buying and sellingHard

  This question evaluates competency in large-scale system design, covering distributed systems, data modeling, scalability, consistency, security, payments and escrow, media handling, and operational concerns for a two-sided online marketplace.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design fast query-to-listing retrieval over tens of millions of listingsEasy

  An ML system design question on retrieving relevant listings for free-text search queries across a catalog of tens of millions of items with low latency. It tests candidate generation, indexing, embedding training, freshness, filtering and scaling, plus the offline and A/B test metrics used to evaluate retrieval.

  eBayApplied ScientistML System DesignTechnical Screen
• Determine Reachability for a Chinese-Chess Horse with Blocked LegsHard

  Determine if a Chinese-chess horse can reach a target coordinate on a 10x9 board while respecting obstacle-blocked destinations and 'hobbled leg' movement constraints.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Determine Whether a String Is a Valid NumberMedium

  Implement a strict numeric string validator that checks whether an ASCII string conforms to valid integer, decimal, and scientific notation formats.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Docker optimization, container fundamentals, and CI/CD for an ML model serviceEasy

  Practice explaining how Docker images, layers, build caching and container isolation work, then optimizing the image and runtime of a Python ML inference service. The question also covers continuous integration, delivery and deployment for shipping a containerized model safely.

  eBayApplied ScientistSoftware Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
• Explain Joins and Write Coupon SQLMedium

  This problem tests your ability to perform multi-table joins, handle temporal data, and apply conditional aggregation to compute business KPIs like conversion rates and total transaction value.

  eBayData AnalystData Manipulation (SQL/Python)HR Screen
• Explain React Rendering and How You Fixed a Re-render ProblemMedium

  A frontend experience discussion about React rendering: explain what triggers a render, the render and commit phases, reconciliation and keys, then walk through a rendering performance problem you diagnosed and fixed. It tests accurate React mechanics, measurement-driven optimization and clear communication of past work.

  eBaySoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
• Explain Why You Are Leaving Your Current RoleMedium

  This question assesses the candidate's ability to communicate professional motivations, growth mindset, and alignment with a new company without speaking negatively about previous experiences.

  eBaySoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Explain Why You Want to Join This CompanyMedium

  This question tests your ability to articulate a clear, value-driven motivation for joining the organization, moving beyond surface-level enthusiasm to demonstrate alignment with the company's technical scale and business model.

  eBaySoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Find K most frequent elementsMedium

  This question tests the ability to combine frequency maps with selection algorithms or heap-based structures to efficiently identify top-k elements.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Find the Container with the Most WaterMedium

  This problem tests your ability to optimize an O(n^2) brute-force approach into an O(n) two-pointer solution by leveraging geometric constraints.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Find the Longest Palindromic SubstringMedium

  Implement an algorithm to find the longest palindromic substring in a given string, breaking ties by selecting the earliest occurrence and properly handling empty inputs.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Find top co-viewed productsHard

  This question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving and implementation skills in the Coding & Algorithms domain, including frequency aggregation, ordering with tie-breakers, and efficient data-structure use for session-based recommendation counting.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• How would you prioritize and test features?Medium

  Explain how to prioritize and test eBay marketplace features using a first-time seller example. The solution covers goal framing, RICE prioritization, MVP execution, A/B testing, seller activation metrics, buyer trust guardrails, and marketplace tradeoffs.

  eBayProduct ManagerProduct / Decision MakingOnsite
• Implement an In-Memory File SystemMedium

  This problem tests proficiency with hierarchical data structures (trees/tries) and object-oriented design by requiring the implementation of an in-memory file system with file/directory management and path resolution.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Implement list and grid transformation tasksMedium

  This problem tests your ability to simulate state-dependent transitions on a 2D grid and your skill in repartitioning data based on specific grouping constraints.

  eBaySoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Investing in Deliberate Professional GrowthMedium

  This question assesses a candidate's ability to self-identify professional skill gaps, design a structured learning plan, and quantify their growth through feedback.

  eBaySoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite