I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at PayPay (Ōsaka, Osaka) in Aug 2025
Interview
After interviewing with them, I completely understand why Japanese companies have the worst reputation in my developer community. They seem to be out of touch with reality, testing interview questions that you wouldn’t actually use in the real world
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Codesignal medium-hard question, depending on your luck
I applied through LinkedIn. After I passed the screening, I was sent an email about online assessment. The online assessment consist of 4 leetcode style question for 70 minutes. Unfortunately I didnt pass the assessment.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at PayPay (Tokyo)
Interview
I was told by the recruiter that the interview would focus on computer science fundamentals like Networking, Operating Systems, and Databases. However, the interviewer mostly asked about my current work instead. Then, in the last 10 minutes, he abruptly asked, “What would you consider while building a payment processor/transaction?” — which was extremely open-ended.
It was unclear what he was looking for — was it high-level design, low-level design, database transactions, or something else entirely? I spoke about database transactions and touched on some high-level concepts, but he didn’t ask any follow-ups or clarifications.
The whole experience felt unorganized, with no clear structure or direction. Ultimately, I was rejected without much insight into what was expected.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What would you consider while building a payment processor/transaction