I went through a very lengthy and tiresome interview process of 4 rounds, as most everyone did, but it dragged on for more than 2 months.

1. Online technical test and video pre-recorded questions
2. Technical interview with Direct Manager/Team Lead
3. Technical interview + Behavioral interview with Section Manager
4. Essay writing on 2 Rakuten books written by their CEO and followed by a final interview.

The problem is I didn't expect the final round to still be a technical interview, and in fact, it was the toughest technical interview of all 3 previous rounds. The first 2 technical rounds were pretty easy. It's okay to fail a candidate, but I feel Rakuten doesn't respect a candidate's time and effort. Such technical challenges should be put up front rather than letting me even go through essay writing, let alone all the waiting time in between.

How do you spend time for coding?

Where do you want to be in five years?

Code review tools, Java / Database related Qs.

What data structure will you use to keep the top 10 spenders for your e-commerce site, given you can keep all records in memory?

Explain a few technical terms:

• Markov chain
• Singleton
• MVC
• Bloom filter
• Opportunistic lock
• Row-level locking