Company: Oracle
Date: 2015-10-22
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Mediocre Management, Poor Execution
Pros: I wanted to give it three because it still offers decent benefits, but the company has gone down hill. I worked in the Sales Cloud Applications development organization, so my reviews is primarily for that org. There are many smart and good colleagues to work with, but management is mediocre. I am thankful to have had steady employment there while there was a severe recession going on. It was a bit of a roller coaster working there, and the organization and company as a whole has declined since I first joined through an acquisition. While some teams and managers were good to work with, others left a lot to be desired - it's all based on who is in charge.  The products are very interesting, and given the large product footprint  there are opportunities to move to different product areas.
Cons: It is a an autocratic organization were sycophants and ambitious suck-ups are most likely to move ahead these days. The stronger and more experienced mid-level managers have exited over time. Development calls the shots and it executes poorly, then blames product managers.  Executives are allowed to do as they please with their reports' careers, hence I saw decent managers put aside and replaced with less experienced ones.  This results in a culture where employees are overly concerned about their position and job, more than the overall good for the product and company.  There ability to execute is sub-standard, managing up comes first. They hire highly qualified people and overtime make them into gophers, else they are put into a corner.  In the past 8 years, they hardly conducted performance reviews, provided bonuses, or salary raises. This is not a meritocracy; there is lots of favoritism, Indians helping Indians, Chinese helping Chinese, at all levels. People work extremely hard to get promoted but do not get a raise to reflect the added responsibility. You'll have to wait years and prove yourself, over and over, to get what you were promised years back, and then you get peanuts.  While there are a few good managers there, I had the worst managers in my career at Oracle, and I worked in at least a dozen companies before. To save money, they started promoting people with no management skills (or aptitude in some cases) to manage teams of  senior level professional, without providing them with the proper training and oversight. Not surprisingly, there has been an exodus of product managers and developers, which are not being replaced.