Rakuten Kobo Interview Questions
& Process

I applied online after going to an in-person office tour. I emailed the recruiter for early careers and got an interview invite a week after applying. The first round was a phone call asking about my background and why I wanted the role. The second round was an online chat with the team director and senior manager. I heard back about the final results the week after the last interview.

The company communicated really well throughout the whole process, keeping me in the loop and answering questions fast. It felt organized and fair, with clear expectations and quick feedback. Just so you know, they might give you a few coding tests to check your skills and how you solve problems. It takes more time, but it's a fair way to judge.

So the interview process had 3 steps. First, a phone call with the recruiter. Then, a 30-minute behavioural interview over Zoom with the hiring manager. Lastly, a 1-hour technical interview over Zoom with two developers. The first two interviews went really well, but the technical one was a mess. One of the devs was late, and both were super cold and quiet. I had to keep asking what they wanted me to do, even after I finished the code. The worst part was when one of the devs tried to say my code was wrong because of two theoretical edge cases, but then admitted I was right after I explained them. It was pretty disappointing and made me question the quality of the developers there, especially since they didn't know how a basic split function works. I definitely wouldn't want to work here as an intern.

I applied through LinkedIn and the whole thing wrapped up in about two weeks, super smooth. It was 3 interviews total. First up was a call with a recruiter where they went over my resume and asked why I was interested in Kobo. Then, I had a behavioral interview with the Product Owner and a Senior Developer. They asked standard behavioral questions, like why I wanted to be an SDET, and also about my past projects. The last round was a technical interview with a Senior SDET and the same developer from the previous interview. This one involved some testing questions and a live coding challenge where I could use any language.