Rakuten

I am reviewing Rakuten from a foreigner's point of view and comparing it with international IT companies. I don't compare it with purely Japanese companies.

• Generally, work-life balance is good.
• Generally, people are helpful.
• If you get into a good department, you can develop yourself as an engineer.
• Excellent support during the COVID outbreak; WFH started early; nobody from tech was reduced.
• Commonly viewed as a good first job for foreigners who want to emigrate to Japan; you would have plenty of opportunities to socialize and could work without any Japanese.

Experience varies greatly among technical departments: some have good engineer communities, adequate methodologies, and technical stacks, while others consist of unmotivated people who are obliged to write frontend in Java.

I've met a few web development seniors and team leads who don’t know the basics: how to get logs from a Docker container, what CSRF is, etc.

There have been cases when HR promised people that no Japanese was needed for the job; later, these people discovered that their new team spoke English very poorly and expected newcomers to learn Japanese.

Speaking of the presence of Japanese traditions, it also depends on the department: in one department, you can get a team of 50-70-100% foreigners, while in another, it would be almost 100% Japanese, and they would expect you to join nomikai and so on.