Company: Oracle
Date: 2014-01-31
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Unbelievable job security
Pros: Backfill is nearly impossible, meaning Oracle will retain the worst slackers, making you shine compared to them.
Ability to work with cutting-edge technology, access to a lot of training materials, books, lab equipment, etc.
No office politics, no backstabbing, no scapegoating, complaints are reviewed according to their merit, no automatic blame on the worker.
Very rare work overload, typically the amount of work is enough to keep you busy for 70% of your shift, sometimes less, so there is usually a lot of time to do your work diligently.
Very liberal access to Internet and company resources, good degree of shift flexibility.
Cons: Backfill is nearly impossible, meaning Oracle will retain the worst slackers, making you do double the work.
Once someone fresh is recruited, however, event though they start at a lower grade, you will find out they earn more than you are despite your years of experience.
Salary raises only evaluated once per year, and only if management feels like it. Inflation adjustments only where required by law. Raises are awarded on a blanket basis, and while they are distributed according to merit at the lowest end of the chain, there is usually not enough money to give to retain top talent even if the complete package went to the top performer.
Discretionary raise requests are completely opaque and there is a complete lack of information regarding stakeholders, approvals, level of management involved and feedback why the request was refused (or whether it was refused at all).
While internal sites pile on features and use more resources, the PC will only get replaced if it breaks down, not when it's too slow to do your work effectively.
No career opportunities. Senior engineers stay glued to their seats and their positions are not backfilled even when they retire.
Ego trips by some senior and especially principal support engineers. They will belittle you, demand information you have already provided, will make basic mistakes or repeat the steps you went through, and will never apologize for their errors or thank you for your help. Not helped by the fact that some of them are incompetent.