I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Rakuten in Dec 2013
Interview
Coding test followed by a simple interview. Mainly behavioral and situation based questions. Slightly about technical skills and previous job experience
Basics of programming, networking, statistics, operating system,sql,TCP/IP
Why Japan and Rakuten
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Rakuten in Oct 2015
Interview
It's a pretty long process time wise.
First was coding round, on Codility.com; stupid easy question.
Second was video interview; this was not live, but rather one where you must record your response to 5 questions and submit.
Third was in-person interview; straightforward and easy.
The whole process on average takes around 2-3 months.
For the video interview, you usually get the list of 5 questions in advance and then by a fixed date you must log-in and record you responses. You only have 5 minutes to answer each question.
The coding part is rather stupid, but I have heard they have since improved the system; they used to ask the same coding question for 3 years in a row. You only have one hour to live code and submit the solution, I think you have a choice of C/C++ and Java, the question is not informed to you beforehand.
Interview questions [4]
Question 1
Q: Basic questions on data structures like Queue, List, Trees, etc
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Rakuten (Tokio) in Mar 2017
Interview
The interview was done by face to face in their head office. 3 interviewers took part in and one of them took charge for the interview. The interview was done in English. When you were describing the detail of the project you had ever done, they asked me to write the project architecture and something about the project on the white board. Some common behavior questions was also asked.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Please introduce yourself for 5 minutes. Please choose one of the projects you did and introduce in detail. Where do you see yourself in 5 years.