1.) Resume screening
2.) Interview with both Japanese speaking stakeholders and English speaking development team
3.) Interview with Executives (similar format to first round interview)
4.) Interview with CTO/HR team
This interview was fairly confrontational and it felt like I was stuck in between two groups in the company who were infighting. The job description specified that I would need to mediate between the Japanese stakeholders and the foreign software developers (for reference, Earthbrain is a joint venture between Japanese firms but is mostly staffed by foreign developers, and it seems like there is a lot of friction between the two groups). There was one neutral Japanese person on the call, one foreign developer who looked worn down by the ordeal and didn't speak much, and one older Japanese man who gave off the impression that he didn't want to hire a foreigner for this role and just had to go through the motions of the interview process. He seemed intent on failing me.
The role asked for at least JLPT N2 levels of Japanese, which I exceed, but it seemed like he wanted a native Japanese speaker. After the interview was over, I received an insultingly arrogant rejection letter from Earthbrain.
I came away thinking they have serious internal problems and are looking for a unicorn to magically solve this for them, while offering not much in the way of compensation.