I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 6 months. I interviewed at Rakuten in Nov 2014
Interview
Common interview, no difficult question
1. Applicant screening (by agent)
Requirement: TOEIC 800 and over
2.Web programming test and web video interview
Programming: difficult programming test(to program to compute the area of rectangle)
Interview question: introduce yourself, why Rakuten, describe your strength, your career path
3.Questionnaire
Be informed to answer some questionnaire: desired annual income, term to quit, etc
4.Interview in person at Rakuten headquarter (in Japanese)
Question base on experience. (parts of question was in English)
5.Interview over Skype
Question: introduce yourself, your experience, the difficulty you had met and how did you overcome it.
6.Interview in person at Rakuten headquarter
Question base on experience
7.Reading books and writing essay
Essays of 2 books of the president(Mikitani)
8.Final Interview in person at Rakuten headquarter
Company culture was explained. no formal question.
9.Offer Meeting in person at Rakuten headquarter
Offer contract explanation by HR. One week provided to make the decision.
easy as usually, but could be more efficient, if you're an experienced developer, should be easy to pass, so basically you can try this before others, some of the interviewer are not professional
You have to read the book written by the CEO. Mostly put your experience to the successful pillars of the company value. Quite generally, Japanese styl,e and remember to talk out loud what you think to the interviewer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Ask about the demo web app I created, the tech stacks I used, and the impact.
The interview process was thorough and focused heavily on architectural concepts. They asked many in-depth questions about architectural patterns, design principles, and real-world application scenarios, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation of my expertise
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe the architecture you would use to move large files