i got rejected from robinhood after the onsite last month. L5 SWE new grad loop. processing it here because writing it out helps and maybe someone else can use it.
what happened:
phone screen went fine. LC medium style questions, i solved both cleanly. the recruiter sounded enthusiastic. onsite was 4 rounds: 2 coding, 1 system design, 1 behavioral.
coding: both rounds felt okay. i finished in time. one interviewer was very quiet the whole time which threw me off. i second-guessed myself and started re-explaining things i'd already said.
system design: this is where i think i lost it. i was asked to design a notification delivery system (i think they wanted something like 'design a system that notifies users about price alerts on a large scale'). i went straight into components without scoping the problem first. i didn't ask clarifying questions about scale, delivery guarantees, or latency requirements. about 20 minutes in the interviewer asked 'what's the read vs write ratio here?' and i had to backtrack. i could feel it going sideways.
behavioral: i prepared STAR stories but the questions at robinhood were more 'walk me through a specific failure and how you changed after' not the generic 'tell me about a time you led a project.' i had one solid failure story but my second felt thin.
the feedback i got (recruiter paraphrased): system design round 'could have been stronger' (yes i know) behavioral 'showed limited depth on the failure examples'
what i'd do differently: spend 5 minutes at the start of any system design asking clarifying questions out loud. make the interviewer hear you scoping. prepare 3-4 real failure stories, not 1. they're asking about them specifically. don't let a quiet interviewer rattle me. it's their style, not a signal.
there's a re-application window apparently. thinking about trying again in 6 months.