Get a Job at Robinhood: Interview Process and Top Questions

Learn how to prepare for Robinhood interviews with this in-depth guide.

Robinhood is a fintech company with a wonderfully democratic mission: to make financial markets accessible to all, not just the wealthy. Robinhood is an app that allows people to easily trade stocks, options, crypto, and more. Robinhood offers exciting roles to current students, new grads, and senior candidates, and it values its office culture and in-person collaboration. 

Below, we break down the Robinhood interview process and top questions you should expect to answer.

Robinhood Interview Process

Robinhood has a standardized interview process, meaning it’s the same for all interviewees regardless of role or team. For most roles, you can expect a phone call with a recruiter, a technical screen (for engineering roles), and an in-person onsite interview lasting 1–2 days at a Robinhood office because Robinhood highly values in-person collaboration and its office culture.

The Robinhood interview process typically takes about 4–6 weeks and involves:

• Recruiter phone screen,
• Technical screen (for engineering roles),
• Final round.

Recruiter phone screen

The first step of your interview process is a quick call with a Robinhood recruiter, who assesses your basic requirements for the role. Expect to go over your resume, to get asked about your relevant experience, to explain your interest in FinTech, and to discuss compensation expectations. 

You’ll likely get asked, “Why do you want to work at Robinhood? So have an answer prepared—bonus points if it includes a personal anecdote or references one of Robinhood’s core values.

It’s important to mention Robinhood’s 7 core values throughout your interview loop. Research Robinhood’s values before your recruiter call to demonstrate your thorough interest in the company and culture. 

Robinhood’s core values:

• Safety First,
• Radical Customer Focus,
• First-Principles Thinking, 
• Participation is Power, 
• One Robinhood, 
• Lean and Disciplined,
• High Performance.

After the recruiter screen, the recruiter does a resume screen, where they match you with a specific Robinhood team based on your resume and answers to their questions in the phone call.

Technical screen

Engineers get a 1-hour technical screen as the second step in the interview process at Robinhood. The technical phone screen includes a medium to hard coding challenge on CodeSignal. This assessment tests your ability to solve data structure and algorithm questions. You’ll be assessed on your technical knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and suitability for the role.

Other, non-technical roles may have a 45-minute call with the hiring manager instead of a technical screen, or candidates may go directly to the final round.

Final rounds

The final round at Robinhood usually takes place onsite at a Robinhood office, since most roles and teams are hybrid and based in an office. Expect 4–6 interviews (more or less, depending on whether you completed a technical phone screen) of 45–60 minutes, conducted by peers, cross-functional partners, and the hiring manager. 

Top Robinhood Interview Questions

These are examples of real interview questions asked at Robinhood as reported by candidates.

Behavioral

• Why do you want to work at Robinhood?
• Tell me about yourself.
• Tell me about a time you made a mistake.
• Why are you interested in FinTech?

Coding

• Return all unique substrings of a given string.
• Implement LRU Cache.
• Given a list of trades, iterate to return buy/sell pairs and overall profit.
• Implement an interval tree to manage overlapping time-based orders.
• Optimize trade execution to maximize returns with constraints (e.g., max 2 transactions).

System design

• Design a restaurant application that gives the expected waiting time based on waiters, tables, and customers.
• Design a URL shortener.
• Design a job scheduler.
• Design a chatbot.
• Design a stock trading platform.

Machine learning

• Explain Bayes' theorem.
• Design an evaluation framework for ads ranking.
• What strategies would you use to avoid model drift in a production system?
• What's the difference between bias and variance? How do you address each?
• If a model reduces fraud but impacts good users, how would you balance tradeoffs?

Data science

• Robinhood is planning to introduce a new feature which allows users to trade fractional shares. How would you decide whether this is a good idea or not?
• If Robinhood wants to increase daily active users, which metrics would you track?
• Write a query to find the number of users who made a trade in 3 consecutive days.
• How would you design an experiment to test a new app homepage layout?
• How would you estimate the probability that a user converts based on past data?

Product management 

• You're the CEO or VP of your favorite product. How would you structure your organization and why?
• How would you build an ad platform for Robinhood?
• What are some endpoints Robinhood has?
• How do you balance engineering foundational work with building new features?
• As Robinhood, how would you disrupt the mortgage industry?

Robinhood Interview Loops

Behavioral

The behavioral round at Robinhood is typically conducted by the hiring manager. Prepare by practicing behavioral interview questions and reviewing Robinhood’s core values. 

Robinhood prides itself on its democratic approach to FinTech and collaborative office culture. Demonstrate how you’d contribute to these important aspects of the company. Prepare personal anecdotes and examples from your previous experience that explain how and why you’re interest in making an impact at Robinhood.

Coding

Robinhood’s coding round includes more data structure and algorithm technical questions, like the technical screen, and a project deep dive.

Study coding questions on the following subjects: arrays, linked lists, trees, graphs, binary search, recursion, and dynamic programming. For the project deep dive, prepare to discuss in-depth a specific past project. Explain your impact and what you would do differently in the future to demonstrate your growth and ability to learn from mistakes.

System design

All engineering roles at Robinhood get a system design interview round. Expect a typical whiteboard interview with a high-level design question, where you’ll need to architect scalable and efficient systems. There’s a chance you’ll get a question relevant to FinTech or the Robinhood product, but some candidates get a more standard, unrelated system design question, like “Design a job scheduler.”

Machine learning

Robinhood’s machine learning round includes coding questions and a project deep dive, which assesses your relevant ML experience and your communication skills. 

To prepare for the project deep dive, decide which previous ML project you want to present and discuss. Explain your decision-making process, any challenges you faced, and how you addressed them. Anticipate follow-up questions. Prepare for this round by practicing with a friend ahead of time or by getting expert coaching on your presentation. 

Data science

For the data science round at Robinhood, you’ll get 1–2 case studies about real-world problems. Expect to design experiments and apply statistical methods. You’ll be assessed on your technical and applied knowledge, analytical thinking, and problem-solving skills

Study for questions on statistics, probability, A/B testing, regression, experimentation, SQL, Python, and product metrics.

Product management 

PMs at Robinhood operate across product verticals like credit cards, sales and growth, crypto trading, gold, internal tools, and derivatives. The product management round includes 2 onsite days of case studies to assess complex problem-solving, product execution, and cross-functional collaboration. 

Expect 3 case studies conducted by a peer or a senior PM, which assess your skills in product sense and product strategy. You’ll also get a product execution round with a fellow PM or hiring manager (analytical, behavioral, and hypothetical questions), and 2 cross-functional interviews (both technical and behavioral questions) with an engineer, designer, or operations person you’d work closely with.

Robinhood Interview Tips

Robinhood cares about the 99%. 

Robinhood is a mission-driven company with a strong devotion to lowering barriers and providing greater access to financial information and investing. Because of this, Robinhood interviewers want new employees who share a passion for its mission. 

Weave personal anecdotes into your answers to behavioral questions to show your personal care for the subject and how you’ll use that passion to help Robinhood’s customers. 

Robinhood values in-person collaboration. 

The vast majority of roles at Robinhood are based in an office, although Robinhood has a small community of remote employees, too. Most employees can expect to come into the office 3 days each week, because Robinhood puts a lot of stock into office culture and in-person collaboration for its problem-solving, creativity, and innovation.

Know Robinhood inside and out.

• Download and explore the Robinhood app.
• Get to know all of Robinhood’s offerings.
• Read up on news and current ventures on Robinhood’s blog.
• Look into the background and values of Robinhood.

FAQs

How competitive are Robinhood interviews?

Robinhood interviews are highly competitive; the conversion rate for interviews is only 1%. Robinhood’s interviewers are trained in the art of interviewing and have very high expectations for interviewees. 

Engineering interviews are difficult—candidates can expect medium to hard coding questions. Because of Robinhood’s highly competitive interviews, we recommend thorough preparation.

How should I prepare for my interview at Robinhood? 

• Before applying, get a resume review. 
• Brush up on your coding skills and behavioral interview questions.
• Study interview questions asked at Robinhood.
• Prep for interviews according to your role: ML engineering, data science, SWE, system design, or PM. 
• Get expert coaching ahead of your Robinhood interview.

Does Robinhood hire students or new grads? 

Yes! Robinhood offers paid summer internships for current students in Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degrees, as well as in bootcamp certifications. Robinhood is also committed to hiring new grads for full-time positions, including its 18-month associate PM program. Read more and explore current opportunities on Robinhood’s Early Talent page.

More Robinhood Interview Prep Resources

Exponent has extensive resources to prepare you to feel your best when it comes time for your interview at Robinhood:

💬 Brush up on interview questions asked at Robinhood

📖 Read through these role-specific Robinhood interview guides