Company: Oracle
Date: 2017-07-29
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Good Insurance - No Raises
Pros: The vast majority of employees and first line managers I worked for we're very good people.  The kind you'd voluntarily grab a beer with after work.  It's a great spot to get your first job high tech. 

Note: This entire review is for a business role, not a technical role
Cons: I was with them for 2.5 years.  Even after being ranked in the top 10% of employees in my level / job description, for the I received no raise (and neither did the only other person on my team that had the highest score).  She didn't get an increase even over almost 3 years.  They hired fresh graduates at higher salaries than those of us who had 5+ years of experience, and had been with Oracle for a couple years.  Especially those who started careers at the height of the recession.

Oracle wont pay you what you're worth until you tell them you have another offer.  It's apparently the only way to get a meaningful base salary adjustment, even with a great performance review.

My local management (up to Sr. Director) had no apparent ability to offer meaningful raises.  The SVP+ level left their hands pretty tied.  The one year my Sr. Director got a raise budget, it was something pathetic, like $20k to spread out over 120 employees.  That would work out to like an 8 cent per employee increase if he divided it equally.

Their internal systems are the worst in the industry.  I hope the version of DAS, e-Business Suite, etc. isn't the same version they sell people.  I didn't appreciate how slow and inefficient these systems were, until I went to work for a competitor.

Salaries are not "competitive" -- their comp philosophy is a "trailing" -- not "leading" one -- at least in the back-office business roles (attorneys, accountants, finance, etc. under Safra) I left for another large software company, and got almost a 3x increase in overall comp with bonus, stock, etc.