I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Rakuten (Tokyo) in Feb 2018
Interview
Step1: online code assessment,
Step 2: A 30-minute interview session with two people in the department.
Step 3: Interview with Manager
Questions about past projects and skills. As well as a few behavioural questions. What would you do if you disagreed with the leader? Why do you want to live in Japan?
Step 4: Don't know
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions about past projects and skills. As well as a few behavioural questions. What would you do if you disagreed with the leader? Why do you want to live in Japan?
General coding questions and programming, culture fit and hiring manager
Usually there are 3 rounds of interviews starting with technical, culture fit and senior management and then HR round and discussion.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Rakuten
Interview
Don't go through 3rd party for interview in Rakuten . Rakuten conducts fake interviews. Inspite of doing well, they block your number after final round conducted. Such a waste of time.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Rakuten (Tokyo) in Aug 2025
Interview
The first interview will be with a recruiter. In this stage, you will introduce yourself and talk about your professional experience. It mainly focuses on evaluating your English communication skills, cultural fit, and overall background.
The second stage was with another interviewer, but the experience felt unclear. The questions were vague and very general, so I often felt like I was just talking to myself. The lack of engagement made the interview feel monotonous, and I found the interviewer yawning throughout entire session.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
In the second stage, the interviewer asked me questions related to Kafka, RabbitMQ, CQRS, Saga Orchestration, and microservices.