Synthesized from 26 candidate submissions for ALL.
Rakuten's hiring process is heavily weighted toward cultural and motivational alignment, with a strong emphasis on why candidates want to join the company and their willingness to relocate. Technical evaluations vary significantly by role, ranging from basic code optimization for interns to high-level system design and framework-specific questions for senior engineering positions.
The candidate successfully cleared all rounds (OA, Technical, and HR) and received an offer for the SDE-1 role at Rakuten in Tokyo, Japan.
OA (1 hour): 2 Questions (No focus on the TC/SC) - Arthmetic slices - Ugly Numbers
An online assessment consisting of 2 coding questions. The focus was not on time/space complexity.
Arithmetic slices
Ugly Numbers
A 30-minute technical round where the candidate discussed their internship project, answered questions on CS fundamentals, and discussed cloud computing (aligned with their field of interest). Behavioral questions were also asked.
A 15-minute HR round focusing on behavioral questions, company culture, relocation willingness, and an explanation of the offer letter and compensation.
The candidate faced two technical rounds covering data structures, algorithms, Java fundamentals, and advanced Java concepts. The candidate was rejected with no feedback provided by the company.
First round focused on data structures, algorithms, and Java fundamentals.
Explain linked list concepts and reverse a linked list
Check for balanced parentheses in an expression
Discuss Spring Boot and Java concepts
Second round covered advanced Java topics, design principles, and problem-solving with Java 8 features.
Explain SOLID Principles
Differentiate between Inversion of Control and Dependency Inversion
Evaluate the value of 'total' in the given Java code snippet
Explain Lambda Functions in Java
Find the sum of elements in a list using Java 8 Streams
Find the product of elements in a list using Java 8 Streams
Sort a list and retrieve the first element using Java 8 Streams
Implement a Singleton class
Explain the behavior of the provided Java code snippet involving variable initialization
Explain the 'volatile' keyword in Java
Differentiate between Runnable and Callable interfaces
Identify the issue in the provided Java code snippet with an infinite loop condition
Identify the issue in the provided Java code snippet with a break statement outside a loop
Explain the internal working of Java HashMap and how collisions are handled
Explain the difference between Filter Interface and Intercept or Interrupt interface
Differentiate between Composition, Aggregation, and Association in OOP
Delete the middle node of a linked list and return the modified head
Explain the String Pool concept in Java
Interview Digest