I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Rakuten (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2018
Interview
Week of coding effort wasted after a successful demo
I was asked to design a data import tool (trivial ETL) and a web-UI with two Views for browsing the data. Even though the problem was solved to 100%, and I've caught all the "gotchas" in advance, and demoed/explained the design and implementation details, I got no offer. The interviewers were sending very positive messages starting the phone screening coding problem; as well as during the onsite demo-and-skills probing session. This, however, turned out to be either very fake or hypocritical as in "assessment against hidden criteria".
I don't recommend anyone spend even an hour on the home assignment. This company is essentially prototyping/stealing your code.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Home coding project assignment (ETL + Web UI + Web Service)
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.