Company: Oracle
Date: 2014-03-07
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Product Manager at Oracle via Acquisition
Pros: I joined Oracle through an acquisition, and moved into a product management role within a fairly large team on the Fusion Middleware side of the business.  I was very lucky with all of my immediate line managers, who were excellent and became friends, as well as pretty much all of my immediate colleagues, whom I liked and worked well with.  I did a number of both outbound and inbound PM roles, including a lot of customer-focused activities and field training.  I was probably happier than many of my friends who loined Oracle as part of the same acquisition and, although I eventually became frustrated there (see Cons, below), overall it was a pretty positive experience.  The benefits and compensation package were good, as were the facilities at Redwood Shores.
Cons: The main downsides for me where the lack of opportunity for advancement and the highly centralized decision-making at Oracle.  As a PM, it was hard to push any kind of innovation since Oracle's business strategy is so focused on integrating a very heavyweight, tightly-coupled "Red Stack" that releasing software is ponderous and process-heavy.  I was lucky to work with some very talented people but, with few exceptions, they all became tired of the obstacles they found in their way, and moved on.  You have to understand that all decisions in Oracle are made by LJE and a tiny handful of immediate reports and so company politics and inertia are both real problems.