The process starts in a bit unusual way, as they first want you to solve a problem, before being able to send them your CV and cover letter. The problem is not difficult and you can usually find many tips on the internet as it is not new. Having completed the problem and sent them your CV and cover letter, you get to talk to someone from HR. It is very casual and not technical, you get to ask some questions about the company. Then, you get a technical interview. I wasn't asked to solve any programming assignments or even answer technical questions. They just ask about your previous experience, your skills, strengths and weaknesses, how you behaved in such a situation, your past projects that you are proud of, etc. They also ask why you want to come to work there, why you want to work in Japan, what do you want to see there, and if you want to find a full-time job there. Overall, people were friendly and the interviews were enjoyable.

In order to be able to send your resume/cover letter, you have to solve their online programming challenge. The challenge itself is a pretty simple Go task, where you begin by writing a script for reading and processing a bunch of inputs, followed by having to upload it to github in a secret gist and sending its info via HTTP request to their site. The result is automatically checked, so you’ll know immediately if your script is working correctly. Interesting process, but honestly they should switch the order and have it be document screening first and then coding challenge, in order to save a lot of people (such as me) some time. I read somewhere else that apparently thousands apply to this program and *very* few get accepted (the author actually referred to it as a lottery), which leads me to believe they are looking for very specific characteristics for the candidate that might not be related to skills or academic achievements (most likely country of origin, university name, Visa status, etc.) Just so anyone who’s reading this has an idea, I have a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from a reputable university in Europe, so if you have anything below that, it might not be worth for you to waste the couple of hours it takes to do the challenge.