I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Rakuten
No offer
Negative experience
Average interview
Application
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Rakuten (Tokyo) in Feb 2018
Interview
Applied through their site. Asked to take video self interview and codility test to tests for “competency.” They emailed questions to self interview ahead of time. Codility test had two questions to complete in 90 min. First was find area of 2 possibily intersecting rectangles while only counting intersecting areas once. Simple but may be hard if you haven’t taken geometry since grade school like me. Second problem was easy, took 5 min O(n^2) time complexity solution. But had time complexity constraint which made me redo solution over another 20 min using hash map to get log time. The two questions had nothing to do with data science or for the position I applied but ok. Got reply soon after for interview through Skype, I live in US, position located in Tokyo. Suppose to be 3 back to back 30 min interviews. 1 min in and I could tell that it was going to be bad. Interviewer did not give their name or introduced what they did at the company and interrupted me 10 seconds into my introduction question. I was not asked any data science questions, just database design stuff not related to position but I answered correctly I think. Asked to find IDs where login date was consecutive for any three days using just SQL, could not think of answer so I asked for answer out of interest and the interviewer laughed, ok. Interviewer, who was probably an Engineer, obviously did not want to be there and showed no interest and even smirked at times like it was a joke. After 15 min interviewer said she was done and told me to wait. I waited 30 min without a word so I hung up. Got rejection email next day.
I was interviewed at rakuten< Bangalore, India. 5 rounds in total in which 3 technical, one discussion with Japanese Manager and finally HR interview with Hiring Manager. Everyone who took the initial 4 rounds was good, knowledgeable, and respecful. Just that Hiring Manager and HR of the company are on ego ride. Sad part is for me last interview with Hirirng Manager was disappointing. Rakuten Bangalore should keep, professional HRs in team . Otherwise whole team of Rakuten, India will suffer.