Never ever waste your time with Woven by Toyota (Woven Planet)
TL; DL Woven Planet (Woven by Toyota) is a waste of time. Just PAINFUL I interviewed with Woven Planet team in Tokyo. Finished all four rounds of onsite, and then declined before they make a decision on my end. - First of all, my skillset was good enough to work for them, but HR was painfully bad so I declined the interview right after the onsite before they make a decision. - HR was so not responsive to my email and painfully slow. They just copy and paste the template message. They are by far the worst HR team I've ever seen. - Don't be deceived by the salary. Take a long hard look at whether you really want to work for them. Why in the first place do you want to work for them where no actual product has been made? - They keep asking why you want to work for Woven Planet. Also, WHY NOT THE OTHER COMPANY, but Woven Planet? It's just a damn time-wasting question. Are they stupid? You might as well think about "why this company", but you shouldn't think about "why not the other company." This question is just proof that they want to see your loyalty to the company. - During the interview, they kept asking, "Why did you join the first company?", "Why did you quit the first company?", "Why did you join the second company?", "Why did you quit the second company?"... It's painful. It's just PAINFUL. They are not interested in your career or achievement as a software engineer, rather they are more interested in the consistency of your career history. If you are a typical software engineer who has experienced several companies for a few years for each, then you'll have a painful conversation. If you are not familiar with Japanese culture, you should know that it is typical for Japanese traditional companies. Woven Planet is full of the Japanese bad side of working culture - workers should keep working for one certain company for as many years as possible, and changing the job/company is thought to be bad. - They try to confirm that you are the person who keeps working for Woven Planet at least for 10 years and never quit. For me, I am super doubtful if Woven Planet is a company that lasts for 10 years. - You have to put a significant amount of time into the take-home assignment, but it's just a waste of time. No one among the interviewees asks about it, and I didn't see anyone checking it. They just took 2 weeks to only tell me that I passed it, and I truly doubt any of them really looked into it. - The company name is going to change from April 1st. It will be changed to Woven by Toyota. As you see from this change, Woven Planet is just a subsidiary of Toyota. Never forget this fact. During the HR interview, the interviewer constantly repeated that Woven Planet is nothing but a part of Toyota. As I checked the LinkedIn of the interviewees, every one of them is from Toyota. Also, they are working for Toyota for like 20 or 30 years. If you are not a typical Japanese person who has dedicated your career to one company for a long time, then it will be a painful time just to talk with them. Also, I suppose the salary is going to be lower down to match up with Toyota's salary in the long run. (Something like 6M-8M yen/year) - Woven Planet is nothing but a fake company. It can only exist by Toyota's old glory, but as you see, as Toyota is sure to decline, Woven Planet is sure to decline, too. I think it is as plain as daylight. - You might want to join Woven Planet just because of its current salary, but you should keep in mind that joining Woven Planet is so different from joining Google or Meta. Nobody in the world recognizes this company as a prominent company like FAANG, instead, it is just a fake company with just a good salary. If you really want to be a part of some fake organization or want to do something fake, I won't stop you though... - Even if you are someone who wants to earn efficiently for only a few years with a good salary, I still don't think you should join. The company culture is too influenced by Toyota, and a decent engineer with the proper engineering skills can never get along well with these legacy people. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the company culture page of the pdf that they sent to me before the onsite. It's just PAINFUL. If you are still wanting to work for Woven Planet, then please tell me why. I just do not understand. What I wrote here is only for the Tokyo office, but I think the US office culture is the same as Tokyo one, too. #WovenPlanet #Toyota #Wovenbytoyota
Woven was acquired by Toyota - there’s lots of really smart people working there. Go check out their website and see what they’re working on. it’s all important stuff for the future like smart city technologies and autonomous vehicle research not that Metaverse bullshit.
You are incorrect. It's not acquired. It was established as part of Toyota in Jan 2021. I'm doubtful if they are really "smart" from an engineering point of view. Working for Toyota is like working in a government office.
Maybe in other parts but not where I’m at - org and team dependent. Idk what’s not “smart” about engineering vehicles? Google the Woven usecases/projects
Why would you consider going to Woven if you're at Google? Layoffs?
No. I am just considering moving to Japan and working there. I hear Japan is a great country to work in especially when you earn a lot. Google Japan is not hiring right now.
DON’T COME TO JAPAN!
Their take home assignments were ridiculously easy. I solved one of them in less than 5 minutes.
I see. I think it depends on which team you are applying for. It was about game development, and wasn't difficult for me, but definitely needs time to implement. I don't think my take-home assignment was solved by many applicants and it needed some normalization.
Why do you care about a noname company fellow Googler? How much are they offering?
I'm just thinking about moving to Japan and trying to find a good job. Google Japan is shutting its door right now, which makes it very difficult to transfer. They offer pretty comparable to Google Japan, which is great.
Hmm i’m interested which team was it. I guess this company has problems you mentioned but not bad like that normally. Maybe few conincidences happened in there like Not great team Bad timing for deciding head count for next year One thing i really hope to change is HR’s reply speed lol.
I applied and did their GitHub code challenge, that was easy but time consuming
Yes, after doing these time-consuming tasks rather than a real challenge for nothing, I don't think they are doing the right thing. Especially they asked lots of "how to make this problem set better." Also, you could find a lot of answers posted in Github.
My impression is during the aggressive hiring period , insiders hired friends and hacked the interview process to help friends lock a higher salary . This was my impression from my interviewers
k8s study groups? What kind of question is this? Do they have a standard question bank or the interviewers are allowed to ask random questions?
You know everything you said about WP relying on Toyota, and how both are sure to decline, can be applied word for word with Waymo and Google. There are surely to be some bad interviews no matter what company you are interviewing for, but it's the first time I've seen so much hate just from an interview. If you don't like the company, that's fine, but there's no need to make a huge hate post as if a company has murdered your family.
Lol this is literally a social network to get this kind of insights . If you don’t like reading them GTFO
Okay HR
Honestly, everything you said just makes me want to work for them… are you sure you’re not the problem?
At 8M yen or $60k/yr, we should all be lifers
Oh, wow. That's an interesting opinion. Yes, I, too, admit that this company might be a good fit for some people. But after working for several companies in the US, the interview process with Woven Planet was too stressful for me. I have taken many interviews in the past, but I've never gotten an interview where they asked so many "irrelevant" questions. What makes you want to work by the way?