Sefism is free for learners. We are here to help you grow, one step at a time.Join for free
Sefism.
E-commerceProduct company

Rakuten

Internet company running an online marketplace in Japan along with mobile network, banking, payments and other digital services.

Not known4 stage process documentedFounded 1997
Headquarters

Tokyo, Japan

Headcount

5,000 and up

5,000 or more people
Work model

Not known

Hiring

Not known

Not enough signal to say. Check the careers page directly.
Where to apply
Careers pageWebsite

Ask for a referral to Rakuten

A referral only means something if the person giving it can actually speak to your work. I will refer you where I know someone on the inside and your profile genuinely fits the role, and I will tell you plainly when I cannot. Either way you get an answer, and a straight one.

  • I read every request. A reply takes a few days, sometimes longer.
  • I will not refer someone for a role their profile does not fit. It wastes your time and costs me the contact.
  • Where I cannot refer you, I will say why, and point you at the way in that does work.
  • Nothing you send here is shared with anyone without you agreeing to it first.

If you found the opening, paste it. It tells me which team you mean.

A Drive, Dropbox or personal-site link is fine. Make sure it opens without a request for access, or I cannot read it.

At least a short paragraph. This is what I would be putting my name behind, so specifics beat adjectives.

Comma separated, up to six. Things you would be happy to be tested on.

Open internships

How they hire

The staged flow is Rakuten’s new graduate route in Japan. Mid-career selection usually takes two to four weeks, with interviews during working hours on weekdays.

  1. 1

    Document screening

    Official
    Application screenRemote
  2. 2

    Online programming test

    Official +1
    Online test1 hoursRemote

    Engineering applicants who pass document screening take an online programming test of about an hour, in a language of their choice from a list of more than a dozen. Each graduate position states whether the coding test is required.

    Coding
  3. 3

    Interviews

    Official +1
    Technical interview

    Engineering candidates are contacted individually to arrange interviews. Online interviews are available, including for applicants abroad.

  4. 4

    Offer with a defined position

    Official
    Offer

    For graduates the exact position is fixed at the time of the offer.

What comes up

Recurring themes from candidate accounts, not a question bank. Nobody is served by leaked question lists, least of all you in the interview.

  • Algorithmic coding under time

    Official

    The one hour programming test is the technical gate for most engineering graduate roles.

  • English ability

    Official +1

    A TOEIC score is optional when applying, but Rakuten may ask a candidate to sit TOEIC during selection if it needs to verify English, and language requirements vary by position.

Worth reading before you apply

From the Sefism resource library, matched to the rounds above.

Course
Grokking Data Structures & Algorithms for Coding Interviews

A foundations course that builds eleven core data structures from the ground up (arrays, matrices, stacks, queues, linked lists, trees and BSTs, hash tables, hash sets, heaps, graphs and tries), then covers sorting, searching, greedy and divide and conquer. Every chapter has practice problems, flashcards and an assessment. It suits students and career switchers whose foundations came from tutorials and who find pattern courses move too fast.

  • Job search
  • DSA
  • CS fundamentals
Design Gurus · Interview Prep · 4 to 6 weeks · Beginner
SubscriptionDetails
Platform
Design Gurus Problem Set

A browsable practice library of coding problems that can be filtered by pattern, data structure, difficulty and company, so you can drill exactly the weakness you found this week. Patterns include two pointers, sliding window, hash maps, stacks, backtracking and greedy algorithms, with company filters for Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and LinkedIn. Free to browse, with an in-browser editor and solutions.

  • Job search
  • DSA
Design Gurus · Interview Prep · Ongoing
FreeDetails
Course
Grokking Tech Salary Negotiations

A practical course on negotiating compensation in tech, from preparing and building a strategy to specific tactics, the full package beyond base salary, handling multiple offers and asking for a raise. It has tailored sections for fresh graduates and experienced engineers. It suits anyone with an offer coming, and anyone who has ever accepted the first number out of discomfort.

  • Career
  • Job search
Design Gurus · Career Growth · 1 week
SubscriptionDetails
Guide
Design Gurus Newsletter

A free newsletter of short, focused posts on system design and problem solving, from the team behind the Grokking courses. Recent posts cover company interview processes (such as OpenAI and Anthropic roles), the most asked mobile system design questions and preparation plans, each linking to a fuller article on the blog. It suits engineers who want a steady, low-effort way to keep system design and interview topics fresh between deeper study sessions.

  • System design
  • DSA
Design Gurus · System Design
FreeDetails
Community
ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest)

The official site of the ICPC, the university programming contest where teams of three share one computer for five hours and advance from regional contests towards the World Finals. It is where coaches register teams, where the current regional and World Finals rules are published, and where you find contests, results and past problems.

  • DSA
  • CS fundamentals
ICPC Foundation · Other · A season of qualifying contests each academic year
FreeDetails
Video
Abdul Bari (YouTube channel)

Abdul Bari's channel is a classic university-style course on the design and analysis of algorithms, taught on a whiteboard in clear English. It covers complexity, divide and conquer, greedy methods, dynamic programming, backtracking, branch and bound, NP-hard problems and string matching, plus Java programming. It suits computer science students studying algorithms as a subject.

  • DSA
  • CS fundamentals
  • Programming
Abdul Bari · Other · Self-paced · Intermediate
FreeDetails
Browse the whole library

What it pays

Nothing collected for this company yet, and nothing worth guessing at. A made-up range is worse than no range because people negotiate against it.

Add to the Rakuten page

This library is only as good as what people who have been through it are willing to share. Most of these companies have no hiring process documented anywhere, and one account of what the rounds actually were is worth more than anything I can research from the outside.

What are you adding?

This decides how the claim is labelled on the page. Only someone representing the company can produce an “official” label, and I check that separately.

Year and month.

Comma separated topics, not the questions themselves.

Round by round is ideal: what each one was, how long, remote or in person, and what it covered.

Credit

Anonymous is the default. If you keep it anonymous, nothing identifying you reaches the page: it is published as a candidate account and your name stays with me. Never send anything covered by an NDA, and never send a take-home or a question paper.

Universities they recruit from

No sourced university links yet. A campus drive, a career fair appearance or an internship partnership is what puts a university here.

Add to the Rakuten page

This library is only as good as what people who have been through it are willing to share. Most of these companies have no hiring process documented anywhere, and one account of what the rounds actually were is worth more than anything I can research from the outside.

What are you adding?

This decides how the claim is labelled on the page. Only someone representing the company can produce an “official” label, and I check that separately.

Year and month.

Comma separated topics, not the questions themselves.

Round by round is ideal: what each one was, how long, remote or in person, and what it covered.

Credit

Anonymous is the default. If you keep it anonymous, nothing identifying you reaches the page: it is published as a candidate account and your name stays with me. Never send anything covered by an NDA, and never send a take-home or a question paper.

How to actually get seen

Check each position’s coding test and language requirements before applying, and practise solving problems in one language within an hour.

Sources

Whole profile last checked 2026-09-22.

Interviewed at Rakuten? Fill in what changed.

Processes change, rounds get added, tests get replaced. If what you went through was different from what is on this page, tell me and I will update it.

Want me to refer you here?

Send me the role, your CV and a few honest paragraphs on why you fit it. Where I know someone inside and your profile matches, I will make the introduction. Where I cannot, I will tell you why and point you at the route that does work. You get an answer either way.

Ask for a referral to Rakuten

A referral only means something if the person giving it can actually speak to your work. I will refer you where I know someone on the inside and your profile genuinely fits the role, and I will tell you plainly when I cannot. Either way you get an answer, and a straight one.

  • I read every request. A reply takes a few days, sometimes longer.
  • I will not refer someone for a role their profile does not fit. It wastes your time and costs me the contact.
  • Where I cannot refer you, I will say why, and point you at the way in that does work.
  • Nothing you send here is shared with anyone without you agreeing to it first.

If you found the opening, paste it. It tells me which team you mean.

A Drive, Dropbox or personal-site link is fine. Make sure it opens without a request for access, or I cannot read it.

At least a short paragraph. This is what I would be putting my name behind, so specifics beat adjectives.

Comma separated, up to six. Things you would be happy to be tested on.

Add to the Rakuten page

This library is only as good as what people who have been through it are willing to share. Most of these companies have no hiring process documented anywhere, and one account of what the rounds actually were is worth more than anything I can research from the outside.

What are you adding?

This decides how the claim is labelled on the page. Only someone representing the company can produce an “official” label, and I check that separately.

Year and month.

Comma separated topics, not the questions themselves.

Round by round is ideal: what each one was, how long, remote or in person, and what it covered.

Credit

Anonymous is the default. If you keep it anonymous, nothing identifying you reaches the page: it is published as a candidate account and your name stays with me. Never send anything covered by an NDA, and never send a take-home or a question paper.

Work with me

Stuck on something specific?

Writing only gets you so far. If you want an answer to your situation rather than the general case, book a session and we will work through it together. Sessions are free for approved Sefism members, and a few slots open each week.

Book a free sessionSee all services

Follow along

New writing, resources and project ideas land here first.