What I learned from the recruitment process confirmed my expectation from reading the reviews on Glassdoor. The interviews are pretty simple. Basic questions about career and experiences. As applying for a Product Management role, I would expect some problem solving questions or study cases but no, nothing. Everything was done through Skype as I am not located in Japan. It went like this: - Pre-interview questionnaire to fill-in (including current and expected salaries) - 1st interview with a PM - Submit a proof that your English is good enough (I'm not English native), TOEIC will do. - 2nd with a more senior PM - Read the two books the CEO wrote - 3rd (very short) interview with CTO - Notified that you passed and will get an offer letter, which comes about a week later - Skype video call to go through the letter and Q&A What I learned from that recruitment process and the interviews: - It's a cheap, slow, rigid and extra-hierarchical company that doesn't apply the so called principles and gold rules of success (which are more like common sense if you ask me) defined by its CEO in his books - The company uses a system of 6 grades and 14 levels within each grade to define salary, that's insane. So, the offered salary was 20% lower than my start-up current one. I don't get it, they either didn't read the pre-interview questionnaire or just didn't care about it. - It's a very lengthy waterfallish approach to product development, monthly release or so (remember, it's an e-commerce business). Forget about agility, short time-to-market or AB testing. - You must attend the weekly (Monday 8 am) ceremony and listen to the CEO. I was explicitly told that it was mandatory (hurt your performance review otherwise) and that I had absolutely nothing to do, just attend. At this point, I would question the ROI of having all HQ staff attending that ceremony for about 50 min, not mentioning the opportunity cost of producing nothing in that time frame. - I was also explicitly told that I would not have any interaction with my n+2, so again, hierarchy is very powerful. I definitely would not recommend anyone with a little experience to even try the recruitment process. Just a waste of time.

First round with the Hiring Manager and Second round with some team members. They explain they are hiring for someone to work on new projects that were started by them but overloaded.