Company: Oracle
Date: 2012-10-01
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Does not value innovation or individuality
Pros: Oracle is "comfortable", and probably a reasonable place to work if you enjoy a more rigid and straightforward environment.
Cons: Oracle has become so large that they are incapable of fostering innovation within the company. They have transitioned into the standard "acquire and assemble" mentality of large companies faced with this problem. The result is an environment where engineers are not valued for their ideas or ability to drive innovation, but rather viewed as replaceable cogs in a ruthless business machine. Management makes broad decisions based on business metrics without understanding the technical challenges, and prevents individual engineers from having a say in the direction of the product or company. Support organizations, from recruiting to HR to IT, intrinsically suppress individuality and culture to create a monotonous business-focused monoculture.