Roblox · Primly Community

Roblox new grad / entry level interview, how to prep and what they actually test

jp_newgrad · 4 replies

Just finished my Roblox new grad loop and got an offer, so writing this while it's fresh. The process is pretty standard big-tech-ish but with some quirks worth knowing.

The pipeline for new grad SWE: Recruiter screen (15-20 min, fit + logistics) Technical phone screen: 1 LC-style problem, medium difficulty, 45 min. They care a lot about explaining your thought process before you write a single line. Onsite (virtual for me): 3-4 rounds depending on the team. Breakdown was roughly: 1 coding round (2 medium Leetcode problems, or 1 medium + 1 that felt hard-medium), 1 system design lite round, 1 behavioral.

For new grads, the system design round is scaled down. They're not expecting you to architect YouTube. I got asked about designing a simple in-game leaderboard: what data model, what updates look like at scale, how you'd cache it. Know the basics: read/write tradeoffs, what a cache is for, rough numbers for DAU vs storage.

Coding focus: arrays, hashmaps, trees. I got a sliding window and a modified BFS. Nothing exotic. But clean code matters more than you'd think. They asked me to talk through complexity after I finished.

Behavioral: the usual STAR stuff. They're big on 'tell me about a time you got feedback and incorporated it.' Roblox has a reputation for caring about craft and collaboration. One interviewer explicitly said they look for engineers who can communicate with non-engineers (makes sense given the platform is partly no-code tools for creators).

Comp for new grad: my offer was base $155k + RSUs vesting over 4 years with a 1-year cliff. San Mateo office, hybrid. Bonus was small (like 10-15% target). No signing bonus in my offer but I've seen others mention getting one.

Timeline was about 4 weeks start to finish. Recruiter was responsive, debrief took about a week after onsite.

Happy to answer questions. Roblox feels different from FAANG in tone. Less 'leetcode grind factory', more 'can you actually think through problems.' Not sure how that holds at senior levels but for new grad it felt genuine.

4 replies

marketer_mei

This is exactly what I needed. Did you do anything specific to prep the system design lite round? That's the part that worries me most as a new grad, I feel like I don't have enough real experience to talk credibly about scale.

jp_newgrad

Honestly, for new grad, they're not expecting real production experience. I read through the Grokking System Design basic modules and made sure I could explain caching, load balancing, and SQL vs NoSQL tradeoffs at a high level. The leaderboard question I got was solvable with just that. The key is showing you know what you don't know, like 'I'd want to benchmark this before assuming Redis is the right call.' That landed well.

content_cole

Good writeup. One thing I'd add from the recruiting side: for new grad roles at companies like Roblox, the behavioral round carries more weight than most candidates realize. A shaky 'tell me about a conflict' answer can sink an otherwise solid coding loop. Practice those stories out loud, not just in your head.

bootcamp_bri

Congrats on the offer! Do they specifically target CS grads or is it open to bootcamp backgrounds for new grad roles? Asking for obvious reasons.