Pros: High chance of working on several new projects, with hands-on experience building apps from scratch instead of monitoring legacy apps like in most other companies.

Cons: Can get pretty stressful due to poor management and working long hours. Very low chances of getting promoted or a salary raise.

Pros: Nice offices, free food, Tokyo is great.

Cons: Rakuten is truly infested with staggeringly bad management. It has suffered from all the true talent leaving, whilst the uneducated or interns from 10 years ago are now left to run the ship. Rakuten runs a very good marketing strategy and likes to sell a very different impression than reality itself. It's hugely successful at that. However, working on the inside, it is a very bad place to be if you want to further your career or actually deliver something. Japanese can be very stubborn, and simple things take literally years to be agreed upon. In the tech industry, this will destroy your career. This isn't a place for foreigners to thrive, so be warned. Also, I would add that the office itself is way too overcrowded, which is really due to the massive amounts of hiring they do to keep the backward paper, manual, and Excel processes alive. The CEO is very active in talking to employees every week at 8 am in the mandatory meeting (which impacts negatively on your reviews should you not attend). He's often a keynote speaker on events and topics which he really knows very little about. It's quite amusing in that respect. It's a lot of hype, and it's a matter of time before the whole machine is exposed. Unless you are just after a visa for residence in Japan, I would stay well clear. Don't say you weren't warned; it is not a tech company.

Pros: Friendly working environment, good team spirit.

Cons: No technical career paths. Poor pay. Company fixated on its Japan-based mobile network, which is dragging the company down.