Before I describe the actual process, please note: My recruiter ended up getting hired for the very position they had recruited me for. I had to find this out while browsing LinkedIn a month later. I don't know what to think besides... Waste of my time. I've heard of internal hiring, but not when the fields are drastically different. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Would have given a "Positive" experience otherwise.

Now for the interview process:

Contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn on Tuesday, had a phone chat on Wednesday, and they sent me the standard deviation type HackerRank challenge mentioned many times on Glassdoor. Completed the HackerRank the following Tuesday and heard that I got to the onsite round on Wednesday. It was a quick process.

I arrived for my onsite on the following Monday. The schedule was 2-3 hours and consisted of 3 behavioral/experience interviews and 1 technical interview.

• First interview was with an engineering manager.
• Second interview was with a mobile engineering manager (I think).
• Third interview was with two software engineers.
• The fourth was with a software engineer who asked me a whiteboard question. He was very helpful and attentive, guiding me in the right directions. Our interview had to be cut short because a group of Rakuten employees had reserved the same meeting room. I was a little confused as to why Rakuten had not organized this better, but it wasn't a big deal. I had enjoyed my time there and really liked my interviewers. It was a fun process.

My recruiter told me I would get a decision by the end of the week (4 days after onsite), but when the time came, there were "scheduling conflicts" so I was unable to get a result until the following Wednesday. They broke the news to me, and I was very disappointed but satisfied with my effort. Thankful for the opportunity that I felt I had just lost fairly.

Little did I know, they were one of the (or the only) candidate(s) that got hired.

Simple array combination question. Much easier than the interview questions I had prepped for, so I was a little caught off guard.