Pros: - Chill work culture - Decent pay but great benefits - Work from Home twice a week

Cons: - Tech culture is very bad, with no drive for improvement and high tech debt. - Products have low value and are not very competitive.

Pros: You will have the opportunity to meet and network with colleagues from all corners of the globe, especially if you're in an engineering role. Much more so than at any other company for which I've worked. There are people from more than 60 countries working here. The atmosphere is very non-competitive compared to other countries. Your performance or lack thereof won't significantly affect your compensation. If you're a team player, you have teammates who try their best in good faith (most do), and you don't like being pitted against your peers, you may enjoy this style. People form close relationships with their teammates in the absence of intense competition. You can make some good friends (nice for someone moving in from outside the country). This is Japanese style, so not unique to Rakuten. I have seen some bosses try to bring in a more competitive style, but it's not the norm. The company has "clubs" for different activities (e.g., soccer, camping, or wine tasting), which provide an opportunity to meet people in the company and network (particularly useful for people new to Tokyo). HR provides a stipend to you for the first two clubs you join, so you get a bit of money to spend on club activities. In my opinion, this is a really excellent benefit to give people, especially for companies that hire internationally, and I wish more companies would do the same. If you land in the right team, you will have the opportunity to work on high-load production systems and the opportunity to gain experience that most companies can't offer. Most of Japan's 125 million people use at least one of our services. Some teams do use new and interesting technology. And, depending on the size of your team, you will have a great degree of freedom to choose the technologies with which you work and to try new technologies in production. Joining Rakuten is an easy way to get a Japanese work visa without already knowing Japanese. You can then move to other companies in Japan with or without learning Japanese beforehand. Catered lunch at no additional cost (including halal and vegetarian options). Gym on site (it costs ~7500 JPY per month to use it). The company pays your commuting expenses (as do other Japanese companies). The salary is not too bad for Tokyo. In all, it's a pretty good first company in Japan if you're an engineer.

Cons: Management have no cross-cultural training or, in many cases, no management training at all. I have seen instances of new kids fresh out of school promoted to low-level managerial roles because middle management sees them as easier to deal with (no experience means no backtalk to middle management for questionable choices). Middle managers generally don't know or can't understand what their staff are working on and focus on verifying that everyone is at their desk from 9 a.m. to at least 5:30 p.m. If you're on the business side, you may have to be at your desk from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. instead of 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. You don't have to work, but you must be in the office. This is common to many large Japanese companies. If you have any sort of ambition, you will not want to work forever in a place where your actual contributions do not affect your compensation. Team building aside, this policy favors the lazy and leads to low levels of workmanship in many instances. No one can argue with decisions made by the CEO. All managers fear to displease him. Many rules are obviously passed down from the CEO with no oversight. For example, we didn't have flex time for many years because the CEO heard (incorrectly, they actually banned remote working) that Yahoo banned flex time due to staff goldbricking. For another anecdote, I was told by colleagues in a branch office that they were instructed to remove all personal items, monitors, etc., from their desks before the CEO visited their branch because he prefers to see clear desks. I suspect CEO-related problems are the root of many of Rakuten's other problems. I have the strong impression that HR is attempting to gradually roll back secondary benefits in order to cut costs (cost cutting necessitated presumably by unfortunate business decisions made by the CEO). For example, during my five years at the company, they have provided a special lunch for vegetarians at the company (which is a big plus in Japan). When I joined, they allowed vegetarians to sign up to receive one of two lunchboxes each day with a vegetarian dish. After four years, they changed from the lunchboxes to having the food dished out onto a tray (no problem here). Then, after a couple of months, they decreased the number of selections to one (no real problem yet, but the erosion has begun). Then, they banned all non-Indian employees from registering to eat vegetarian food (there are no enforced laws against discrimination in Japan). After another month or two, they then decided to decrease the amount of total food available so that of the 600 or so vegetarians at the company, there is only food for two-thirds of them. Now, a long line forms for the vegetarian food earlier in the lunch hour. You must show up early to wait, lest you be one of the unfortunate ones who lose their chance to get catered lunch that day. The above case only applies to vegetarians, but you may want to consider if it's a good idea to work for a company that tempts you in with advertised benefits and then slowly shaves them away as much as they can without causing too many people to quit. Also, do you want to work for a company which behaves this way when doling out benefits, bonuses, and raises? (HR must approve all raises even if your own boss requests one). The salary you have when you join will be very similar to the one you have when you quit (not much chance for any big raises even if you gain more experience or responsibility). No vegan food – if you're vegan, you'll be cooking for yourself.

Pros: You definitely learn how to handle workplace politics and understand how things really work inside a company.

Cons: I’d recommend staying clear of the payment department. Things there just don’t feel very fair or transparent, and it can get unnecessarily stressful. There’s also quite a bit of internal politics, and at times it didn't feel like a very respectful or comfortable place for women. I really hope the company works on being more transparent and creating a healthier, more supportive work environment.