A valiant but disappointing effort at westernizing a Japanese company - Software Engineer Rakuten Employee Review

2.0
Mar 3, 2019
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

- Free food - Good view from the higher floors - Relocation allowance - Sponsors a 5-year VISA

Cons

- Low salary - No flex time, everyone must start at 9:00 am sharp (and there is salary reduction for being late 15+ minutes) - 40 hours of included overwork (normal working hours are from 9:00 to 17:30m but arriving at 9:15 and leaving at 17:45 means you get deducted 15min worth of pay but do not get compensated for extra time you worked at the end of the day, unless your total overwork of the month exceeds 40 hours) - Paid amenities (gym, etc. are advertised as amenities but are actually not free) - Advertised to be 100% English speaking but a lot of teams still use Japanese - An hour-long company-wide morning meeting every week is a total waste of time. Information is irrelevant for the work of most people and many just sleep through it. - The bonus is fixed and decided based on rank. - Uses a lot of out of date technology. Not good for learning as an Engineer. - Very rigid, heiarchical management system. - High turnover rate. - Extremely prideful despite all the flaws.

Explore other reviews about Rakuten

5.0
Mar 25, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Rakuten Rewards has great life balance. Too bad the economy was getting rocked.

Cons

Don't really have any cons. I understand that the market's been hard so had to downsize the force, so that was kinda challenging. Hopefully AI will increase everyone's output.

4.0
Jun 22, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible Hours, Benefits, Pay, lunch provided 3 days per week,

Cons

There were no cons while I was there

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