I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Rakuten (New York, NY) in Feb 2020
Interview
The office is in very good location, primary reson why I attended the interview.
Interview process is totally a toss up I guess.
There would be total of 5 rounds.
2 technical
1 with lead and manager
1 with senior manager from Tokyo
1 with CTO.
First 2 technical rounds are set to test algorithms and data structures and framework related things.
3 rd round is more like discussion, but there would be few technical rounds.
The next round is with two managers, both from Tokyo, the questions seem simple but I don't know what they were searching for. I was honest with my responses. They asked things related to project and the work management and few behaviour questions.
I was rejected for no particular reason. Didn't seem like there was any issue during the interview rounds. It seems just so random.
I suggest not to attend if you have better opportunities. It's a very exhausting and not worth.
The HRs are the most ignorant people. They say every round is going to be technical but it would not be like that. They don't respond to calls once they send out rejection email without specifying the feedback.
Only if you are in absolute need, attend their interview, otherwise you are just wasting your time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
what is the number tables required for 1-1 mapping, n-1 mapping, n-m mapping.
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.