software engineer

senior software engineer

member services representative

registered nurse case manager

product manager

Rakuten International

Rakuten Loyalty is a subsidiary of Rakuten, an e-commerce sales and marketing company based in Japan. The Boston branch makes browser toolbars and are working on deploying a number of systems that will track loyalty points earned by users of their toolbars.

Pros:

<> There are tons and tons of openings at Rakuten Loyalty (but see catch #1).

<> As an engineer, you may get the opportunity to work on new, sexy tech, such as node.js and mongoDB (see catch #2).

<> Lunch is served daily (catch #3)

<> Great location for city-dwellers (South Station) (catch #4)


Cons:

<> Catch #1 - They're always hiring, because people are always leaving. There has recently been an exodus of the few senior-level staff, leaving behind a plethora of very young, very inexperienced engineers and/or H1Bs.

<> Catch #2 - If you get an interview you will hear a lot of buzzwords, but Rakuten Loyalty makes browser toolbars. Almost all the products currently in production are ancient, poorly designed and always on fire. The new-ish CTO has brought his cronies over from Lebanon and put them in charge of all engineering, so in order to have any hope of working on the new stuff, you will have to brown-nose and kowtow to the tribe. If you dare criticize and/or disagree with the tribe, you're either given grunt-work or sent to HR.

<> Catch #3 - The culture at Rakuten Loyalty assumes that long-hours equal quality work. This is a strict in-the-office-every-day job, wherein leaving before 6 or 7pm (no matter how early you got it) is seen as a sign of laziness. The "free" lunch means that they expect you to never leave the office, except to maybe sleep. All of the senior managers either have no families or stay-at-home wives, so there is no sympathy/tolerance for those who need get home for their children.

<> Catch #4 - The open-concept office is very loud and very dusty. The CEO personally designed the space and left the fire retardant exposed because it supposedly looked cool. Unfortunately, this also left the HVAC completely exposed, meaning that there is a persistent high-decibel white noise and a thin coat of dust on everything.

A typical day at work here involved being yelled at hounded over by the bosses favorite underling, who tried to micromanage everyone to the point of wasting company money. I was promised 40 hours a week in the interview but got only 20-30 for 2 months; then when it got busy, I was told it was mandatory to work 12 hour shifts which didn't stop for a whole month. These shifts required constant walking on concrete floors and the promise that if we didn't speed up we'd be working even longer hours or have to work a weekend day. The hardest part about this job was working as hard as you could imagine while being screamed at and watching others being screamed at by someone all day long just because they are friends with the boss. I've never seen more dysfunctional management in my life. All of my coworkers were very nice and respectful and worked hard though, and they would always lend a helping hand. The most enjoyable part about this job was going home after work.

As a Senior Technical Scientist in the Translational Sciences department at Rakuten Medical, my work days are a mix of running in vitro experiments, analyzing data, and attending meetings with members of our team as well as other teams to coordinate activities and communicate results. The environment at RMI is very collaborative, with visibility of activities across many different functions, allowing all team members to stay connected to the entire drug development process. There is ample opportunity for advancement and we are well recognized for our work. 

We have very aggressive timelines and goals at RMI, and the work is challenging as we push the boundaries of the immuno-oncology field. But the first-in-class PIT technology we are working with is exciting and already returning inspiring results in the clinic. The management team at RMI is supportive, and our current phase of rapid growth will allow us to expand our capabilities and bring new life changing therapies to patients as quickly and efficiently as possible, which is the motivation that brings us all to work everyday.

When I first started Rakuten I was told 40 hours which went for awhile then it would get slow a little bit. Then peaked hit and I got good hours with a nice paycheck. The last year I was there in 2017 I would only work two to three hours and wasn't able to have good checks. Management was not very helpful and often would talk down to me like a kid. Also they played favorites and didn't care to treat me right. They were suppose to work around my school schedule which they did at first and then dropped me towards the middle of it. When I had a problem with it because of peak schedule I told them about school and they would work around it. They changed the peak schedule twice and I had to confront them again while it didn't change for me, but they said they didn't know what I was talking about. This job started out good until they had more management instead of one person. The good part was relaxed and good coworkers who were friendly. If I got treated with respect, they worked around my school schedule, more hours, and advancement I would have stayed.

The office space looks nice.  The CEO has a nice smile and makes a nice impression, but grave mistakes were made in picking his executive team.  The CTO has selected childhood friends and other buddies as his first-tier managers.  These managers were not chosen based on qualifications.  The actual programmers are then used as scapegoats for the incompetencies of these sub-paar managers.

Workers spend about half of their times in meetings planning work.  The plans are then interrupted by the CTO who changes his mind whenever the wind changes direction, causing more meetings and sometimes meetings about meetings.  When you are a programmer, this is a disaster because there is no time left to complete your work.  Everything devolves into a blame game.  Attempts have been made to wake up the CEO to what is going on, but his head is stuck in management theory from Harvard and not in the real world.

I cannot recommend working here.  It is a depressing place.

As I said, Dead-end Job, no advancement, not guaranteed 40 hours per week outside of the winter months.  They do try to keep you busy sometimes, but work loads are unpredictable at best.
Returns department is a disaster and they are 100% aware of it at all times and only take action last minute when bad news hits the fan to take care of it.
Looking up orders in returns is only 50% guaranteed else you cant do anything with it because they don't train you other ways to look up orders.
They don't teach you how to fix mistakes, and they constantly apply unnecessary pressure to you like they've never worked returns a day in their lives.
The employees are very friendly, the managers generally nice, but there is no career growth or promotion opportunities, raises cap at $14 an hour regardless of your time spent working there.  This job helped me when I was in a jam, but it isn't worth more than 1-2 years of your time.

Work here be a indentured servant. There rules are show up for your scheduled days or there will be demerits. Only problem is you dont get a schedule you get text messages from the manager daily about start times. There are demerits for leaving early but there is no end time you work till they are done with you. Manditory this day or that every holiday there is 1 There is no spending your holiday with the family, no three day weekends you will have to use some of your time off. To get your holiday pay you must work your scheduled day before and the day after whichever day they decide to add this month we worked on the 4th sunday.  Rakuten does not value you as an employee. New employees are hired at a higher wage than the senior employees. So if you dont mind training someone to do the same job as you making more than you come work here stay for a while get bitter with the rest of us. Like alot of other Rakuten employees still lookin for a better place to work.....
 

I was able to transfer as a manager to a team member though this acquisition this was personally tough, however I really enjoyed Rakuten management team, I did feel demoted in some sense but Rakuten had significantly more room to from. Fast growth is never easy, but the management of the client service department really had great vision and cared for their team. I do think overall my department needed more hands and roles that had a more specific set of responsibilities.  

However I learned a lot and I never felt like I could not talk to my manager. I only left this company due to personal family needs. I could see myself returning and I’m excited to see where Rsl goes as the grow down the road ! 

I would suggest working here if you have a passion to work hard, it will pay off. Some days will be hard , and long but it was a good job. 

I enjoyed my time at Rakuten which has great potential as a growing company but the lack of standard operating procedures makes things tough.  Things will get better with the new WMS system in place once all the kinks get worked out next year.  Sales is doing a good job bringing lots of new clients but the company needs to be more selective of the types of products and customers they bring in to the warehouses.  Unrealistic performance numbers for some facilities makes things really difficult as not all factors that effect productivity are considered but all blame falls on operations team.  They are trying hard to create a positive work environment and promote their culture.

Viki is an easily accessible online volunteering opportunity.  The subtitling tools are easy to use and it's a good way for practicing foreign languages.  Viki provides a $20 gift card, free membership, and possibly a small gift on a yearly basis for active volunteers of certain tiers.  Of course, volunteering is still free labor and the perks are not equivalent to the hours and hours that are spent on subtitling entire TV shows.  It sometimes feels like a thankless position and I can't really say I can really see the positive effects of my labor.

Viki has evolved throughout the years and is becoming more and more  fine-tuned.  I think it still has a lot of potential.  I hope that volunteers can get more benefits, especially long-term ones.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 7 salaries reported	$121,141 per year
Senior software engineer 5 salaries reported	$155,513 per year
Member services representative 3 salaries reported	$16.27 per hour
Registered nurse case manager 5 salaries reported	$36.50 per hour
Product manager 4 salaries reported	$133,781 per year

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