Company: Oracle
Date: 2019-03-08
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

My perspective after 3 years
Pros: - Great work life balance; Oracle offers workout classes during lunch and most managers won't frown upon you for working out during lunch. This can be an 8-5 job but it is not very strict. Leaving a bit early or coming in a bit late is okay. 

- Though turnover may be high (it's sales), management has been trying to invest in activities for its reps, like covering lunch for the team once a month when the team goes out to eat/drink. 

- Not an "old school" sales culture (no heavy dials, though you will have to do it sporadically). I've worked in other sales organizations and Oracle's prospecting efforts in inside sales is very relaxed. This may be good or bad, but overall people like that they can find other ways to reach out to customers instead of pounding 50+ calls a day. 

- Generally, people here are very nice and you will make lots of friends; though some may say Oracle sales is "fratty" (it is), people are not mean and you can get along with pretty much anyone. 

- $50K base for a Tier 1 rep is decent and liveable in most places in Austin. You can request an increase after a full year of being at your quota (Tier 2 pay is $65K). 

- Great health benefits and investment plans (401K match and stock options, as well as financial advisory if you want). There is also education reimbursement and a bunch of other stuff. Vacation is 14 days for your first three years (accrued at 0.8 hrs per paycheck; more after three years). Management PTO is unlimited. 

- You can make a lot of money if you work hard, get lucky, have good accounts, a knowledgable manager, and a great field rep who knows what he's doing and is willing to include you in sales cycles. More into this in the cons. 

- Beautiful office in front of Lady Bird Lake that makes you proud of working here and makes it easier to come to work. The office building has a Starbucks, gym, is 30-seconds away from the lake trail, and has amazing views of downtown.
Cons: - Your success is mostly out of your control and almost entirely dependent on your accounts/sales territory/manager: Reps who are working on deals and closing them "found" their deals because customers reached out to them saying they were interested in buying. Or because their field rep handed over the deal to them so the field doesn't have to do all the paperwork and approvals. Or because one or several of their accounts are adding a subsidiary and need to buy more licenses to stay compliant. Or because their territory has a lot of renewals and opportunities to do uplift or add more products to customers who just wanna buy more. Or because your manager has strong relationships at the field level and can get you included in deals and helps you with internal negotiations. You're effectively "rolling the dice" in this role every fiscal year. 

- Competition with field reps: if your field rep finds an opportunity in an account you share, he/she may leave you out of working that account altogether. The only way for you to work the account is if the field agrees to let you own the entire forecast of the deal, which likely they won't if a lot of money is on the line. If your deal is "too big", field management may take it away even if you found it. Why? Because they have the power of going onsite and leveraging the relationships they already have in those accounts (field reps don't get rotated every year as inside sales reps do). Most of the inside sales reps who do work with the field are simply pushing the paperwork for them. If you want to learn to actually sell, this role may not be for you. 

- Internal cannibalization: you may sell products that other reps at Oracle can also sell, which can get confusing/annoying for the customer. You may also sell a product that another pillar at Oracle also sells in another marketed version, so you'll be competing internally to see who gets to sell it to the customer. You also have a lot of reps from different pillars calling your same customer about different products, which creates a big mess. Imagine having business development, inside sales, and field reps from multiple lines of business at Oracle calling the same IT department in a company. 

- No work from home flexibility and average PTO plan: we brought this upon ourselves for having a relaxed culture, but work from home is almost nonexistent. The work from homes that do exist are "awarded" to reps during sales contests and are seldom. I don't personally see this as a con because having reps on the floor can be very useful when you have a question, but if you are used to having this flexibility than this job is not for you. Moreover, PTO is 14 days, and it is frowned upon to take it all at once. You may have to book them well in advance and spread them. 

- Hard to break away from established procedures or bureaucracy: obvious one for a big company, but still need to discuss this. Oracle has a lot of rules and procedures in place for you to even get a discount approved, or anything you need to help you win a deal versus a competitor or just to get the deal across the line. A lot of internal negotiations will delay or derail your deal. You will spend most of your day writing approvals to get a discount or some other requirement approved instead of prospecting or talking to customers. Then there is a lot of waiting. In addition, the rules for getting promoted are clearly laid out, but they can be unrealistic if your success is entirely dependent on things out of your control (see Con #1).