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Good place for a first job with no prior experience

Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Rakuten for 2 years
March 14, 2016
Tokyo, Japan
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

No overtime (at least for the departments I worked for).

Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner (reasonable quality but not so good).

Cons

You will not be promoted within the first 12 months (no matter how good you are).

Way too many projects are outsourced, so employees often have nothing to work on.

In some departments, not knowing Japanese will be a big issue (even though the official language is English).

Terrible evaluation system, which is not based on your achievements and technical skills as an engineer.

Engineers and non-engineers get paid the same amount based on the grade in the company.

Salary increases are too low when your grade increases.

As a foreigner, I was treated horribly by Japanese managers.

Advice to Management

Instead of hiring people with the speed of light, why not try to keep current employees happy and make them stay?

With the current rate of quitting, I see a horrible future for the company, so you better change and value your employees more.

Stop treating engineers terribly and value their work.

Stop blaming everything on engineers and calling them "liabilities to the company" while you outsource all your projects.

Stop pretending to be a global company when everything is still too Japanese and traditional.

Stop copying from competitors and start inventing.

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